Police arrest man after armed robbery at Seaway Mall in Welland
An arrest has been made after an armed robbery at the Seaway Mall in Welland Monday afternoon.
Police say a man armed with a handgun robbed the Peoples Jewellers store at 2:30 yesterday.
The suspect left the area driving a silver Ford Taurus, and that vehicle was later found in the parking lot of a hotel on Lundy’s Lane near the QEW in Niagara Falls.
Officers tracked down the room where the suspect was staying and the Emergency Task Unit and Crisis Negotiators were called in to assist with the arrest.
The male suspect and a woman were arrested without incident when they left the room.
The woman has been released without charges since police believe she did not play a role in the robbery.
27 year old Brandon Jake Raymond Zimmerman of Port Colborne is charged with robbery with a firearm, fail to comply with recognizance of bail, fail to comply with probation order, possession of a weapon contrary to a weapons prohibition order.
The hotel room is still being held by police as they wait for a search warrant.
From killer gunmen to a fake cancer bride: 600 people locked up in Merseyside in 2020
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Murderers, evil rapists, gangland thugs, twisted paedophiles and even bent cops were among the criminals linked to Merseyside jailed in 2020.
Liverpool Crown Court heard many of the cases, involving everything from killer drivers and international drug traffickers to wicked fraudsters who inflicted misery with their shocking scams.
Often victims showed tremendous bravery in facing their tormentors in court, including by giving evidence in trials to ensure justice was done.
Police officers spent months and, in some cases, years working tirelessly to bring these callous criminals to justice for their horrific crimes.
And even when the coronavirus crisis hit, the hard work of court staff, judges and lawyers alike meant the wheels of justice kept turning, with the ECHO’s two dedicated court reporters covering cases throughout.
Below are the details of more than 600 of the men and women put behind bars in 2020.
Helen Dove
(Image: liverpool echo)
Chief bridesmaid-to-be Helen Dove ruined her supposed best friend’s wedding with a string of elaborate lies.
The bizarre and cruel con left a judge scratching his head as it appeared to have no reasonable motive whatsoever.
Dove, of Prescot Road in St Helens, convinced Kimberley Baker to apply for a job within the children’s services department at Warrington council.
The fraudster created 15 fake colleagues to trick Ms Baker into believing she had been hired for her dream job.
Ms Baker eventually busted Dove, 31, when she confronted her after going months without pay.
The pair met at a stable complex in Rainford in the summer of 2017 and Dove learned of Ms Baker’s work dream.
She pretended she worked for the council as an adoption worker, showed her fake ID and convinced her to quit her job at BT.
The bizarre scam left 43-year-old Ms Baker around £50,000 out of pocket due to lost wages.
The scheme left her devastated, paranoid and she was forced to cancel her wedding due to the financial impact.
Dove admitted two counts of fraud and was jailed for two years and eight months.
Abdulla Ahmed
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Abdulla Ahmed claimed demons commanded him to stab a former friend in the neck in a Toxteth street.
The 28-year-old killed Hassan Mohamoud, 29, in Bentley Road on the afternoon of March 28, 2019.
Ahmed, of Devonshire Road, Toxteth, who admitted manslaughter, was found not guilty of murder after a trial.
He was found guilty of wounding with intent after knifing his brother, Awale Ahmed, 24, earlier that same day.
Prosecutors argued Ahmed had “beef” with Mr Mohamoud and sent a text saying: “You watch when I catch you.”
But defence lawyers told a jury Ahmed had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia after “hearing voices”.
The Somalian-born killer inflicted “two deep stab wounds” to his brother’s left arm at their shared flat, at around 11am.
He then took a knife and killed Mr Mohamoud when they met up a few minutes' walk from his home, at 1.31pm.
The victim’s grieving parents said they will never again set foot in the street where the “gentle giant” was killed.
Ahmed had undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenia, exacerbated by drinking, and had been using cannabis and the drug khat that day.
He was jailed for 18 years, with an extended five years on licence.
Joshua Gibbs
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Online troll Joshua Gibbs threatened to mutilate and kill Liverpool ECHO staff.
The 32-year-old sent “chilling threats” when pulled up over a tweet regarding ex-Wavertree MP Luciana Berger.
Former ECHO business reporter Tony McDonough responded to a comment Gibbs made about Ms Berger on September 21, 2019.
The ECHO’s political editor, Liam Thorp, saw Gibbs' offensive and threatening response to Mr McDonough, which came from a business @Aladdins_CaveUK.
Mr Thorp reported the tweet to the company, which imports goods from the Middle East, before informing Twitter Support.
Gibbs demanded the ECHO fire Mr Thorp and emailed him on September 25, threatening to “smash up” the ECHO office.
He called the office and threatened to slit a female member of staff and Mr Thorp’s throats, then told a woman he would “f***ing cut Liam’s testicles off and put them down his throat”.
Gibbs, from Kensington, admitted two counts of sending a malicious communication and two counts of making threats to kill. His six previous convictions for 12 offences include nine cases of harassment and one of threats to kill.
Gibbs was jailed for two and a half years.
Adam Kershaw
(Image: nyorkspolice)
Drink driver Adam Kershaw crushed a St Helens man to death in his 7.5 tonne camper van.
The 29-year-old ploughed a crudely-converted truck into a Peugeot carrying Joseph Keane and his girlfriend Alyssa Henderson.
Three times over the limit, unlicensed and uninsured, he was on the wrong side of the road when he effectively “drove over” his victim at 55mph.
Kershaw had earlier smashed into a stone bridge and narrowly avoided a collision with a coach containing 60 schoolchildren during a 28-mile rampage.
Trainee solicitor Mr Keane, 28, who was celebrating his birthday, had visited Ingleton Falls in Yorkshire, before the tragedy on the A65.
(Image: PA)
Kershaw was travelling to Beat-Herder Festival in Lancashire, on July 13, 2018, after spending the night drinking and taking ketamine.
Hitting the bridge left a door to the rear of the van hanging open, but he ignored his passengers' pleas to stop and “didn’t seem to care” before the crash.
The dad-of-two, of Mytholmroyd, West Yorkshire, did nothing to help at the scene and didn’t speak to Miss Henderson, who was “covered in blood and hysterical with grief”.
Kershaw, who had previous convictions for drink driving and speeding, admitted causing death by dangerous driving and possessing ecstasy and ketamine.
He was jailed for nine years and banned from driving for 11 and a half years.
Melissa Ellis and Jonathan Lucas
(Image: merpol)
A couple with three children who pretended they were landlord and tenant to steal more than £100,000 of benefit cash lived a life of luxury from their ill-gotten gains.
Melissa Ellis, 34 and Jonathan Lucas, 38, were handed £108,754 of taxpayers' money which they were not entitled to.
They pocketed housing benefit and other benefits for nine years but, at the same time, the family went on flashy holidays to America, Dubai and Portugal.
The couple lived in a plush home on St Mary’s Road in Huyton, which was protected by security gates.
On the driveway was a convoy of vehicles including a Jaguar, a Mercedes, a Range Rover and a Transit van with a trailer.
(Image: merpol)
Suspicious fraud investigators for the Department for Work and Pensions eventually snared the couple after visiting the four bedroom pad.
Ellis and Lucas, who illegally claimed the benefits between 2008 and 2017, were living together as husband and wife, it was discovered.
Ellis admitted two counts of making a dishonest representation to obtain benefit and three counts of dishonestly failing to notify a change of circumstances.
She was jailed for two years and three months.
Lucas admitted two counts of encouraging or assisting the commission of an offence.
He was handed 21 months behind bars.
Aiden Bennett
(Image: cheshirepolice)
Knife-wielding Aiden Bennett attacked and tried to rob a dad walking home from a newsagents.
The 25-year-old confronted Mark Bruffell shortly after 10.40am on November 30, 2019 in Keepers Walk, Runcorn.
Drunken Bennett demanded cash and claimed Mr Bruffell’s son - aged in his 20s - owed him £50 he had borrowed.
Bennett warned “you don’t know what I’m like” then pushed him into metal railings while waving a silver steak knife.
“Totally out of control” Bennett then attacked him from behind, punching him in the neck, back and base of the skull.
The pair fought and fell to the ground, but Bennett had a second knife and later pursued the victim to his home.
Bennett admitted attempted robbery and two counts of having a bladed article in public.
He was jailed for four years.
James Milligan
(Image: Merseyside Police)
An innocent 15-year-old boy was attacked by 33-year-old James Milligan wielding a broom handle and threatening to “bite his face off”.
The victim was assaulted on the first day he had left home for two months and was left feeling paranoid and suffering from flashbacks.
Milligan, who was angry after receiving threats from a mutual friend during a day of drinking, armed himself with a broom handle.
He went to a property in Florence Road, Seacombe on several occasions on May 5 2019, when threats were exchanged.
Milligan threatened to set the flat on fire and began swearing at the vulnerable schoolboy, who had arrived on the scene by chance.
The dad-of-two threatened to “bite his face off” and the boy backed into the house, where Milligan hit him over the head with the broom handle, causing a six-inch gash.
Milligan admitted causing grievous bodily harm and was jailed for 21 months.
Paul Lawrence
Sick paedophile Paul Lawrence who was previously jailed for grooming and molesting a young victim was later convicted of raping her.
The 58-year-old was caught with a schoolgirl in 2017, wearing just a dressing gown with a condom in the pocket, after months of grooming and sexual abuse.
Lawrence, originally from Birkdale, was jailed for six years and nine months after admitting a string of sexual offences with a child.
On January 3, 2020, the vile abuser was convicted again after the victim came forward and accused him of raping her.
Merseyside Police officers praised the girl for her bravery in bringing her attacker to justice.
Lawrence admitted two counts of rape and was handed seven years and nine months in jail, consecutive to his existing prison sentence.
Christopher Noon
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
A naked cocaine-fuelled yob threatened to shoot his ex-partner and open fire on police during a violent siege.
Christopher Noon, 26, flew into a jealous rage during a meeting with Amy Naylor, the mum of his two children, at her flat, kicking her in the head and body.
The coward - who also bit Miss Naylor’s lip and spat on her - refused to let the victim leave her home in Nutgrove Road, Thatto Heath.
When police arrived, at 10.40pm on August 24, 2019, Noon warned: “I’m all strapped up. I have a gun and will shoot you. You’re getting blasted. Got a strap lad.”
Noon threatened to shoot Miss Naylor, before armed police used a distraction device and stormed the flat to rescue the victim.
He admitted false imprisonment, assault causing actual bodily harm, affray and breach of a restraining order.
Noon, of no fixed address, previously slashed a woman and set a dog on her.
He was jailed for three years and four months and given an indefinite restraining order.
Scott Cowley
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Scott Cowley hacked three women’s computer webcams so he could secretly film them undressing and having sex.
The pervert, 27, from St Helens, used “Trojan” software to spy on his unsuspecting victims over a two-year period.
But he was rumbled because he had bought the “malicious” malware programme using his own PayPal account and was identified by the Regional Cyber Crime Unit.
Police seized his laptop when they raided his home on November 25, 2019, before arresting him at his workplace in Kirkby.
They discovered folders named after each victim containing pictures and videos of the women undressing and one having sex.
Cowley, of Bedford Street, who has no previous convictions, admitted three counts of computer misuse and three counts of voyeurism.
He was jailed for two years.
Lee Devereux
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Lee Devereux was spared jail after choking his partner but turned up drunk for a ‘Building Better Relationships’ course.
The jealous woman beater held his knee on the throat of his girlfriend Lisa Ellis and asked: “Are you ready to die?”
He punched, kicked and strangled the victim when she tried to flee his Anfield home during a “frightening” ordeal.
Devereux, 37, of Vallance Road, admitted assault causing actual bodily harm over the harrowing March 22, 2019 attack.
He had 24 previous convictions for 43 offences, including past attacks on previous girlfriends.
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But he walked free after defence lawyers said he had served the equivalent of a nine-month jail sentence on remand.
Devereux was handed 21 months in jail, suspended for two years, plus various courses, when sentenced on July 12, 2019.
However, he behaved unacceptably at a probation centre on July 18, turned up drunk on October 16, then skipped appointments on November 18 and December 16.
Devereux, who admitted breaching the suspended sentence, was jailed for 20 months.
Wayne Poulton
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Wayne Poulton smashed a family’s car windscreen with a baseball bat showering three young children in glass.
Harrowing dashcam footage captured the moment he went berserk with a weapon hidden in his boot.
The parents of the youngsters - aged six, seven and 10 - pleaded with the yob, telling him: “There’s kids in the car.”
But the 27-year-old, of Emery Street, Walton, replied: “I don’t give a f***, I haven’t had my medication.”
His erratic driving in a Volkswagen Golf led to a confrontation in New Brighton at around 5pm on May 27, 2019.
The children - two boys and a girl - were left covered in glass, but fortunately didn’t suffer any cuts in the incident.
Poulton admitted three counts of common assault, criminal damage, threatening behaviour and possessing an offensive weapon.
Judge Stuart Driver, QC, said the children were so frightened they became “hysterical” during their “terrible ordeal”.
Poulton, formerly of Markfield Road, Bootle, burst into tears as he was jailed for 12 months.
Stephen Roy Coleman and Stephen Kane Coleman
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
A father and son armed with a machete burst into a house in Wirral and slashed a terrified dad.
Stephen Roy Coleman, 43, and Stephen Kane Coleman, 21, stormed a property in Tranmere looking for Curtis Glover.
Mr Glover had allegedly threatened Coleman jnr’s girlfriend with a Samurai sword when she was out with her children.
He wasn’t at home but his dad, John Glover, was struck on the arm with the weapon while trying to protect himself.
Drug dealer Coleman jnr and his serial criminal dad, both of Barnsley Road, Birkenhead, struck at the victim’s home in Hampden Road on August 3, 2019.
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
CCTV footage showed Coleman jnr smashing windows and throwing property outside, causing £2,000 of damage.
Coleman jnr admitted aggravated burglary, wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, and criminal damage.
He also admitted three counts of possessing Class A drugs with intent to supply in 2018 and 2019 and asked for 17 burglaries to be taken into consideration.
His dad admitted burglary with intent to inflict grievous bodily harm and breaching a 22-month suspended sentence, for a past burglary plot.
Coleman snr was sentenced to four and a half years in jail and grinning Coleman jnr was locked up for eight years.
Rachel Bateman
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Rachel Bateman glassed her best friend in the face then claimed she forgot she had a glass in her hand.
The mum-of-three attacked 27-year-old Chelsea Jones during a drunken argument, leaving her scarred for life.
Just seconds beforehand, Bateman, 27, had thrown the contents of the glass over her shocked friend of 16 years.
But she tried to convince police, the Probation Service and a court she hadn’t realised she was holding the weapon.
Bateman and Miss Jones - a mum-of-two - were at the Bromborough Pub in Wirral at around 11.45pm on May 18, 2019.
CCTV showed Miss Jones walk away, Bateman snatch a glass, throw the contents over her, then smash it into her face.
The victim suffered a 4cm deep cut from her lip to her nose, which needed seven stiches and left a highly visible scar.
Bateman, of Hornby Road, Bromborough, denied wounding with intent but this charge was dropped after she admitted the lesser offence of wounding.
The mum, who had a past conviction for common assault, accepted her claims about the glass weren’t true when challenged by a judge.
She burst into tears as she was jailed for 20 months.
Dale Redrobe
Dale Redrobe was jailed in connection with a nationwide drugs conspiracy.
He admitted being involved in a plot operated by Jamie Oldroyd, who moved cocaine to London, Manchester, Scunthorpe and Carlisle.
Warrington-based gang leader Oldroyd, 29, was eventually caught as part of the Cheshire Police investigation Operation Dreadnought.
“Direct associate” Redrobe was caught after Oldroyd passed him cocaine in the Asda Birchwood car park, to be delivered to a third party.
Prosecutors said the 30-year-old, of Swanside Road, Huyton, was given the role of driving vehicles associated with Oldroyd’s car rental firm.
In reality, Oldroyd, of Rennie Drive, Warrington, who was jailed for 14 years and three months, oversaw a multi-million pound drugs gang.
Redrobe was jailed for 21 months.
Richard Roberts
A pervert told a 12-year-old girl to send pictures of herself in the shower before being snared by paedophile hunters.
Richard Roberts thought he was speaking with a girl from Liverpool called Emily, but was actually sending the sexually explicit messages to a “decoy” from the group.
Conversations between Roberts and the decoy began after he spotted her profile on Facebook and messaged her from his own account.
The 49-year-old, from Lon Ogwen in North Wales, told the girl he wanted to be her first kiss before quickly moving on to discuss sexual matters.
Roberts asked for sexual images of the girl and said he would travel to Liverpool to meet her.
But he warned her not to tell anyone about their relationship until she was 16 and asked her to send him images of her in the shower.
Roberts gave the girl his real name and used his address before the paedophile hunters confronted him at his home and he was arrested.
He admitted attempting to arrange or facilitate the commission of a child sex offence and possessing extreme pornographic images.
He was jailed for two years.
Daniel Jones
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Upskirt pervert Daniel Jones targeted schoolgirls and women on escalators at supermarkets, shopping centres and train stations.
He secretly filmed eight children, some believed to be as young as 10, in a crime commonly known as “upskirting”.
The twisted creep amassed more than 400 videos and photos, but accidentally recorded his own face on one of the sick clips.
Police found his iPhone had a “covert camera” app, which allowed it to record or take pictures without the screen being active.
Jones, of Fairlie Drive, Rainhill, was rumbled after an incident at a Tesco store in St Helens, at around 7pm, on May 9, 2018.
The 26-year-old admitted outraging public decency, at various locations, between May 9, 2017 and May 10, 2018.
He pleaded guilty to taking eight indecent photographs of children and one count of voyeurism, relating to the fitting room video.
Jones, who had no previous convictions, was jailed for 12 months.
Antonio Hall
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Antonio Hall has spent nearly four decades stealing from vulnerable retired and disabled people across Merseyside.
He has 21 convictions for 42 offences and was described as “a distraction burglar who preys on the elderly”.
The 53-year-old was released from jail in July 2018, midway through a seven-year sentence for 19 such burglaries.
But while on licence, he and an accomplice struck at the addresses of seven pensioners, aged between 73 and 95.
Police arrested Hall when they raided his flat in Longmoor Lane, Fazakerley on September 18.
Officers found a fake photo ID card in his name, purportedly from the Independent Training Standards Scheme and Register.
Hall, who admitted seven burglaries, was recalled on licence, jailed for eight years and banned from driving for seven years.
Ryan Weston
Hollie Sheridan-Connis tragically lost her life on January 1, 2019, just hours after being given a cocktail of alcohol and drugs by her boyfriend Ryan Lee Weston.
The Wirral couple were celebrating New Year’s Eve at a cabin in Wales when they decided to get engaged, having only recently reconciled their “volatile” relationship.
Hollie, 24, and Weston 32, arrived at the Glan y Gro Lakeside Suites in Gwynedd on December 31, 2018 and brought alcohol and a range of drugs with them.
Just hours later, on New Year’s Day 2019, Hollie was pronounced dead by paramedics that were called to the cabin when she collapsed.
Weston, of Oteley Avenue, Bromborough, admitted supplying Hollie with cocaine, ecstasy, amphetamine and ketamine.
He also pleaded guilty to burgling Ms Sheridan-Connis' home in Leasowe earlier in December 2018 and was sentenced to 21 months in prison.
He was already serving a prison sentence having pleaded guilty to possessing drugs with intent to supply in August 2019 and being handed a 45-month jail term.
Sentencing Weston, Judge Huw Rees said: “This is a tragic case and underlines the devastating effects drugs and a combination of alcohol can have.
“Courts often warn death can result and in this case it has.”
Kyle Paladino
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Kyle Paladino stabbed a supermarket manager in the stomach when he tried to stop him stealing a jar of coffee.
The 23-year-old, who was high on drink and drugs, was spotted by Ben Lee acting suspiciously on CCTV at Farmfoods in St Helens.
Mr Lee, who was in his office, watched Paladino put the jar in a bag at the Boundary Lane shop at around 3.30pm on Saturday, October 19, 2019.
Mr Lee challenged the thief, who replied: “Who do you think you are? I paid for this.”
The manager grabbed the coffee and Paladino became aggressive, so he was escorted to the door, where he lunged at the manager with the hidden blade.
Paladino, of Beacon Grove, St Helens, admitted wounding with intent, possessing an offensive weapon, and theft.
He was jailed for four and a half years.
Vasile and Adrian Serban
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
An evil yob who stabbed a dog before hurling the pet to her death from a balcony escaped to Romania with his brother.
Vasile and Adrian Serban fled the UK in the wake of the sickening attack at a devastated family’s home in Toxteth.
They were part of a gang of drunken louts who targeted Mihaela Filip, her son Christian Dutu, and their beloved American bulldog Hindo.
Adrian, 31, of Grosvenor Road, Wavertree, threw a broken bottle, which hit Ms Filip’s right hand, causing three deep cuts, before four thugs scaled the victims' balcony.
Hindo tried to protect her owners, but was knifed with a broken bottle by Vasile, 25, of Bannerman Street, Wavertree, then flung onto a parked van in the road below.
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Horrifying mobile phone footage filmed by witnesses captured the shocking moment the animal was thrown, then limped away and died.
Mr Dutu was also stabbed in the chest by one thug, then dragged inside his home, where his shirt was ripped and his trousers pulled down.
Meanwhile, Adrian also set upon Ms Filip - pulling her hair and repeatedly punching her - on the evening of April 21, 2018.
The brothers were jailed in their absence, having skipped a trial in September 2019.
Vasile admitted affray and was found guilty after the trial of “destroying property” - criminal damage - namely Hindo. He was jailed for 22 months.
Adrian was found guilty of affray and wounding Ms Filip. He was jailed for three years.
Steven McGlue
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Masked robber Steven McGlue raided his local Post Office and was chased by the owner - leading him to his own home.
McGlue and an unknown accomplice stole £1,000 in cash from Sutton Oak Post Office in St Helens.
McGlue, 36, kept watch at the door, while an unknown thug pushed his way past terrified worker Deborah Clark.
But the store’s owner Umar Farooq pursued the balaclava-clad pair, whose raid was captured on CCTV cameras.
And McGlue came unstuck when he made the bizarre decision to run straight to his nearby flat in Cecil Street.
When police arrived they found a balaclava and gloves set alight in the kitchen sink and another balaclava on a table.
Bungling McGlue then revealed his treacherous friend said he didn’t get any money - fleeing with the cash for himself.
McGlue, who admitted robbery, was jailed for four and a half years.
Tamara Williams
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Transgender woman Tamara Williams was sent to a men’s prison after she carried out a “campaign of burglaries” in a one-night crime spree.
The 37-year-old, of Bridge Street, Birkenhead, broke into supported accommodation for vulnerable people and people older than 55.
There she attempted to steal a treasured Second World War medal on October 25, 2019 in an hour-long crime spree.
The court heard Williams had gone through a bout of homelessness in January 2019 and had drug misuse issues.
She admitted handling stolen goods, theft from a shop and five burglaries.
Williams was sentenced to two years in prison.
The court heard at least part of this sentence would be served at a male prison, although where the rest of the term is spent could be subject to appeal.
Christopher Jones
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
“Extreme” stalker Christopher Jones sent a young mum a picture from the blockbuster movie Taken with the sinister caption “I will find you”.
The former soldier later rang his ex-partner and played a clip of Liam Neeson saying the famous line.
The 28-year-old exploited his role as stepdad to the disabled woman’s six-year-old son to manipulate her emotionally.
Jones, of Burman Road, Garston, subjected the visually impaired Wirral mum to shocking abuse over six months.
His “campaign of extreme harassment” left her suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
Jones admitted stalking and breaching a restraining order designed to protect his victim and was jailed for four years.
Darren Draper
(Image: merpol)
Darren Draper attacked a man who shouted slurs about him in the street.
He was at home when he heard unsubstantiated allegations being yelled outside, followed by a garden object crashing through his front window.
Outside were Christopher Magee and another man who had been drinking at the King Head pub in Bebington, Wirral.
Mr Magee claimed he had been told something about Draper which angered him, so decided to visit the 52-year-old’s home in Highfield Road, Rock Ferry.
“Infuriated” Draper enlisted the help of two other men and set off in a car to confront Mr Magee on September 11, 2018.
He had walked a short distance to Green Lawn where he was hit by the car, causing him to fall to the ground, before Draper repeatedly kicked and stamped on him.
Draper admitted inflicting grievous bodily harm and was jailed for two years and four months.
Caroline Rimmer
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Drug addict Caroline Rimmer punched a nurse before biting two police officers in a “chaotic” hospital rampage.
The 43-year-old lashed out at medical staff, security and patients' relatives who intervened at Aintree Hospital.
She then sunk her teeth into two female police officers, leaving both scarred and fearing they may have contracted HIV.
Both victims were given antibiotics and underwent blood tests to see if they had contracted HIV or Hepatitis C.
The tests proved negative, but the officers faced an anxious wait before the all-clear.
Rimmer, of Sandown Road in Seaforth, admitted two counts of assault causing actual bodily harm and two counts of assaulting an emergency worker.
She was jailed for 12 months.
John Llewellyn
John Llewellyn killed a mum in a road accident just hours after meeting her on a dating website.
The 34-year-old, from Liverpool, picked up Chloe Haydock, 26, during the early hours of January 13, 2018.
Llewellyn, of Redrock Street, Everton, then lost control of his Ford Fiesta and smashed into a wall in Wigan.
Chloe, who was a mother to a three-year-old boy, Leo, suffered serious injuries in the crash and died in hospital.
Llewellyn, who was driving at nearly 50mph in a 30mph zone, told police he had hit another car, which drove off.
A roadside breath test tested positive, but a blood sample taken at hospital found him under the drink drive limit.
Llewellyn, who suffered injuries to his wrist, hand, legs and knee, admitted causing death by dangerous driving.
He was jailed for three years and four months and banned from the road for eight years and eight months.
Sean Meadows
(Image: cheshirepolice)
Sean Meadows was in an armed gang who “hunted down” a car in a high-speed chase before blasting it with a sawn-off shotgun.
The 30-year-old was one of four men in a Mazda 3 who pursued the Ford Focus, which contained three rival men.
Meadows, formerly of Oxford Street, Widnes, was accused of being the gunman, but always denied he pulled the trigger.
He pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence, on the basis he hid the weapon.
Meadows was arrested a few days after mayhem in Runcorn Old Town, at around 8.30am on Tuesday, June 19, 2018, as schoolchildren walked past.
The driver of the Ford lost control near Bridge Street and it was rammed by the Mazda, as a gunman shot the Ford’s back lights.
Meadows got out carrying a bag containing the shotgun and dumped the weapon, which has never been recovered, in bushes.
He was jailed for nine years with an extended one year on licence.
Stephen and Daniel Yates
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Stephen and Daniel Yates stole an elderly woman’s Motability car, Blue Badge and walking stick.
The brothers broke into the 88-year-old disabled victim’s Prescot home while she was sleeping upstairs.
The OAP, who is hard of hearing and requires medication to sleep, “thankfully” wasn’t disturbed by the pair.
But they left her housebound over Christmas, after taking her Peugeot 108 and a handbag containing her driving licence.
Stephen and Daniel - former ASBO terrors who have plagued Prescot - struck with an unknown third man on December 13.
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
They smashed a kitchen window to gain access to the pensioner’s property in Dennett Road, then fled in her Peugeot.
A police officer spotted the stolen car being driven at speed along Prescot Way, with no lights on, at around 2.15am.
After a short chase the three men got out and fled, but Stephen and Daniel were caught near the M57, just before 3am.
They both admitted burglary and theft from a motor vehicle, while Daniel also admitted breaching a suspended sentence.
Daniel, 28, of Hughes Avenue, Prescot, was jailed for three years and 20 weeks.
Stephen, 36, of Kingsway, Prescot, was jailed for three years.
Paul Pollard
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Paul Pollard robbed a taxi driver at knifepoint but was “run over” by police - breaking his leg in two places.
The thug - who has a history of robbing vulnerable people including women - struck near Anfield stadium on Bonfire night.
Pollard held a folding knife to the neck of Delta Taxis driver Mehrdad Asgari and demanded his takings in Grasmere Street.
But when the 35-year-old fled with just £15, he was hit by a police patrol car and left lying on the pavement “screaming in pain”.
It happened just before thousands of fans left Anfield, after Liverpool’s Champions League win against Genk on November 5, 2019.
The career criminal admitted robbery, possessing an offensive weapon and criminal damage.
He was jailed for six years, with an extended four years on licence.
Callum Leslie
Callum Leslie knocked out two men after one of them accidentally spilt his drink in a nightclub.
The 23-year-old attacked his victims in Voodoo bar in Warrington before launching a ferocious assault outside.
He knocked both men to the ground and kicked the drink spiller as he lay on the dancefloor, knocking him out.
Leslie punched the other victim several times, again as he lying defenceless on the floor, before security intervened.
When Leslie realised the first victim had come outside, he punched him in the head from behind, leaving him unconscious.
An unknown man potentially saved the victim’s life by pulling his tongue away from the back of his throat to clear his airway.
The Good Samaritan also put him in the recovery position and he regained consciousness 20 minutes later, on May 11, 2019.
Leslie, of Pippits Row, Runcorn, admitted three counts of assault causing actual bodily harm and was jailed for 10 months.
Roger Collins
(Image: cheshire police)
Roger Collins attacked and imprisoned his girlfriend for hours leaving her so scared she built a panic room.
The serial woman beater assaulted his partner before sitting astride her on a bed, yelling: “I could stab you if I wanted to.”
The 52-year-old took the terrified woman’s pillow, sentimental to her because it belonged to her late dad, and smothered her with it, suffocating her.
Collins punched her to the side of her face, followed his victim as she fled, locked the front and back doors - removing the keys - and confiscated her mobile phone.
The victim was left imprisoned in her own home in Orford, Warrington, for several hours on September 3, 2019.
Collins, of Dentons Green Lane, St Helens, was found guilty of false imprisonment and actual bodily harm after a trial.
The remorseless brute was jailed for 18 months.
Michael Morrisey
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Michael Morrisey instructed a fellow paedophile how to rape his nephew and tried to arrange sex with a 13-year-old boy.
The depraved pervert boasted online about having sex with children and tried to talk another man into “sharing” his young relative.
But the unsuspecting 67-year-old was actually talking to undercover police - while on bail and serving a suspended sentence.
The OAP was jailed for seven years over the disturbing conversations and a sick stash of images, which showed babies being abused.
A top judge said he only avoided an even longer extended sentence because he was likely to die in prison from lung cancer.
Morrisey was subject to a 10-month jail sentence, suspended for two years, for downloading indecent images.
He admitted two new counts of downloading indecent images, one of possessing indecent images, and breaching a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO).
Morrisey also admitted attempted sexual communication with a child, encouraging or assisting the commission of an offence, and breaching his suspended sentence.
Gang who sold crack and heroin outside nursery
(Image: cheshire police)
A gang who sold crack cocaine and heroin outside a children’s nursery raked in up to £2,000 a day.
The criminals were watched by undercover police as they supplied their Class A product from Liverpool to Warrington.
On average, the “county lines” mob dealt between 15 and 20 grams in smaller £10 street deals each day.
(Image: cheshire police)
They transported the heroin and crack cocaine by car, then sold the drugs outside a nursery in the Padgate area.
Graham Daniels drove the drugs from a house in Glencairn Road, Old Swan to Warrington, then returned with the profits.
Detectives later raided the house and established it was being used to produce, weigh and package the drugs.
(Image: cheshire police)
Anthony Bath, was known as the street dealer who physically sold the drugs to users in the Warrington area.
Each day, Gilesie Smith was responsible for operating the phone that users would contact for drugs.
He would direct Bath to meet the drug users and provide them with their supply.
(Image: cheshire police)
Michael Murphy, sourced and paid the rent in Glencairn Road which was used as a drug hub.
Smith, 20, of Dorien Road, Old Swan, admitted three counts of conspiracy to supply crack cocaine, heroin and cannabis.
He was jailed for six years and nine months.
Bath, 26, of Montague Road, Old Swan, admitted conspiracy to supply crack cocaine and heroin and was jailed for six years.
(Image: cheshire police)
Daniels, 48, of Poplars Avenue, Warrington, admitted supplying crack cocaine and heroin and was jailed for four years and six months.
Murphy, 22, of Ingrow Road, Kensington, admitted possessing cannabis with intent to supply and allowing his premises to be used for the supply of Class A drugs and was jailed for three years and three months.
Liam Grant, 22, of Davidson Road, Old Swan, admitted conspiracy to supply cannabis and was jailed for three years and two months.
George Clayton
(Image: Merseyside Police)
George Clayton left his ex-partner with stitches and clumps of hair missing after he attacked her in front of their four young children.
He left the children screaming after he launched into an attack on his victim, who was making tea for their family, aged between three and 13.
The 43-year-old, who has attacked her before, had become angry and irrationally jealous after she asked him to leave her Fairfield home.
Clayton, of Robarts Road, Anfield, struck the woman across the face and grabbed her by the hair, causing her to fall to the floor.
He then pulled clumps of her hair out, as she begged her 10-year-old to call police, then punched her in the face twice, cutting each eyebrow.
The woman beater, who had been drinking and admitted wounding, then fled and she called 999, on July 26, 2019. He was jailed for 16 months.
Sidney Southwood
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Sidney Southwood bought a vulnerable young woman cuddly toys and told her it was “so I can do what I want to you”.
The 76-year-old sexual predator gave his victim the gifts when she was out shopping in St Helens town centre.
He then led the woman to secluded wasteland, off Duncan Avenue, and tried to put his hand down her trousers.
Southwood repeatedly kissed the victim, despite her pleading for the OAP to stop, and trying to push him away.
But residents whose homes overlook the field witnessed his vile attack and called police, who arrested Southwood.
Southwood, of Tickle Avenue, St Helens, denied sexual assault but was found guilty after a trial.
He was jailed for 18 months.
David Edwards
(Image: Cheshire Police)
David Edwards tried to swallow up to 20 bags of heroin when caught by the police.
The 23-year-old, and fellow addict Sharon Cooper, 46, were “low down” the drug hierarchy chain and made to transport drugs across Merseyside.
Cooper, a mum-of-two, of Deepdale, Widnes, was coerced into driving a car by a man with Edwards, of no fixed address, in exchange for drugs.
Edwards, who was already serving a sentence of three years and four months imposed in April 2019 for trying to rob three shops, had built up a drug debt.
The pair were stopped by police with scales, £763 in cash, one wrap of crack cocaine and 20 wraps of heroin in a car in Widnes on December 23, 2018.
As officers approached, Edwards panicked and tried to swallow the drugs, but police managed to stop him and Cooper confessed.
Edwards, who admitted possessing heroin and cocaine with intent to supply was jailed for two years and four months, consecutive to his existing sentence.
Cooper, who admitted being concerned in the supply of the drugs, was handed 23 months in jail, suspended for 18 months, and a drug rehabilitation requirement.
John Molyneux
(Image: cheshirepolice)
John Molyneux told a girl he was “not a predator” before exposing himself and groping her, then trying to stifle his victim’s screams with her hair.
The 27-year-old, of no fixed address, inflicted the terrifying encounter in the early hours of a morning in 2019 after he had been drinking and taking cocaine.
Molyneux turned up at the property in Widnes, tapped on a window, and when the victim - aged under 16 – opened the front door, put his foot in the gap.
They chatted and Molyneux, “slurring his words” and “swaying”, smelled of alcohol.
Molyneux, who was out on licence after serving half of a six-year sentence for robbery, told the girl he had recently been released from prison.
He told his victim she was “fit” then advanced while claiming he was “not a predator”.
Molyneux tried to stifle the traumatised girl’s screams with his hand and her own hair.
He admitted sexual activity with a child and was jailed for 20 months.
Jack Murphy
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Crack cocaine and heroin dealer Jack Murphy boasted he sold “the best in town”.
The 18-year-old was part of a “County Lines” gang supplying Class A drugs from Liverpool to Barrow in Cumbria.
Murphy, of Nightingale Road, West Derby, was caught with a “graft” mobile phone, known as the “A Line”.
This sent out “flare” texts alerting users drugs were for sale, including: “On with 10/10 both best in town”
Police arrested Murphy and two accomplices when they raided a house in Longway, Barrow on May 21, 2019.
They recovered almost £2,500 in cash, cocaine separated into six separate deals, more drugs, and two plastic wraps of brown powder - “fake heroin” that was nutmeg.
The gang had a stash of weapons in the address, including a dagger and a large machete over one foot in length.
Murphy was carrying two mobile phones - one the “dealer line” - and admitted conspiring to supply Class A drugs.
He was jailed for three years and two months.
Gary Swift and Scott Kilgour
Gary Swift and Scott Kilgour sailed a yacht across the Atlantic carrying a huge stash of cocaine.
They were at the helm of the SY Atrevido, which collected a 750kg illegal haul from Suriname, on the north east coast of South America.
The cocaine had a purity of 83% and a wholesale value of around £24m and a potential street value of £60m once cut.
Swift, 53, had undertaken a “dummy run” in December 2017,, but this attempt ended up in him getting into difficulties in waters off the Welsh coast.
He had to be towed into Fishguard harbour for repairs, and crucially, this alerted the authorities to their future plan - on August 27, 2019.
When the Merseysiders arrived in Pembrokeshire, Border Force officers were watching and swooped on the boat, half a mile off the Welsh coast, searching it thoroughly.
Swift, who knew the game was up, confessed to them: “I’m the bad one here. I had to come clean. I’m glad it’s over.”
Swift, of no fixed address, was jailed for 19 and a half years and Kilgour, 41, of Bedford Close, Edge Hill, for 13 and a half years, after they both admitted importing Class A drugs into the UK.
Jay Ferguson
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Jay Ferguson said he wanted to carry out a violent rape using Tinder when he was released from jail.
The paedophile, 20, who identifies as a man, was being held at women’s prison HMP Styal in Cheshire.
He was locked up for 22 months in 2017, after putting together a “rape kit” and threatening to abduct and rape a child.
Within days of his release in August 2019, he contacted police to tell them he had a child sex abuse video and a knife.
Sarah Badrawy, prosecuting, said: “He has written letters to officers at Styal indicating his intention to carry out a violent rape on his release and his intention to use a social network or dating application called Tinder to do so.”
Ferguson was released from Styal on August 16, 2019 and moved into a flat in Liverpool Road, Huyton.
He rang the police at around 4.50am on August 21 and said he was talking to a man called Leon Jones, who had sent him indecent photos of children.
Officers seized a Category B indecent video from Ferguson and evidence from chats contradicted his claim that he requested it while acting as a paedophile hunter.
The pervert was released on bail, but just before 9pm on August 26 walked into Huyton Police Station and revealed he was carrying a kitchen knife.
Ferguson, who had served five months on remand, admitted possessing an indecent image of a child and having an article with a blade ahead of a trial.
He was jailed for 14 months.
Carl Turner, John Hughes and Patrick Boyle
(Image: Merseyside Police)
A worried dad confronted his daughter’s abusive ex-boyfriend only to be beaten unconscious in front of terrified schoolchildren.
Carl Turner enlisted the help of John Hughes and Patrick Boyle to rain punches on Michael Pye – leaving him with a broken nose and facial scars.
The attack took place inside the One Stop Shop in Bowness Avenue, St Helens, on July 10, 2019, after Mr Pye, 53, coincidentally came across Turner bothering his daughter, Samantha Pye.
(Image: Merseyside Police)
Turner and Hughes also stamped and kicked on Mr Pye’s work colleague, 51-year-old Thomas Beard, leaving him with a serious wound to the back of his head and a fractured arm.
Turner, who was later arrested after a roof-top stand-off, also bombarded 24-year-old Miss Pye with daily threatening phone calls and texts.
Miss Pye was driven to such despair by Turner’s threats, on one occasion she cut her wrists with a Stanley knife, and although she survived her injuries, her child was taken into care for a month by social services.
(Image: Merseyside Police)
Turner, 28, of Eskdale, Skelmersdale, admitted two counts of wounding and one of harassment. He was jailed for three and a half years.
Hughes, 25, of no fixed address, admitted two counts of wounding and was jailed for three years and four months.
Boyle, 24, of Windsor Road, Tuebrook, admitted one count of wounding and was jailed for 12 months.
Michael Fagbuaro
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
A killer gun thug drove a woman to attempt suicide after they started dating while he was in prison.
Michael Fagbuaro was jailed for 18 years over the shooting of Kensington butcher Asif Bashir in a ruthless gang robbery.
The 22-year-old cocaine dealer was cleared of murder, but convicted of manslaughter, after a harrowing trial in March 2011.
Catherine Mooney said she and Fagbuaro were friends and she felt sorry for him, as he told her he wasn’t responsible, so she started visiting him in jail.
But he began controlling her, demanding she put money in his account and buy him designer clothes, and issued vile threats.
He said he would show her dad intimate photos of her and threatened to hurt Miss Mooney, her family and even her dogs.
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
They split up but when he got out of jail in August he said he loved her and they reunited, before he attacked her on October 10.
In front of shocked witnesses at Liverpool South Parkway train station he dragged her out of a car and punched her in the head, then made more threats.
He forced her to go to police and give a false account to say he acted in self-defence, then called her from prison threatening to kill her mum.
Ms Mooney was so affected she tried to take her own life.
Fagbuaro, formerly of Grove Way, Edge Hill, was found guilty of assault causing actual bodily harm and perverting the course of justice.
He admitted a second count of the latter offence.
Fagbuaro, who was recalled on licence, was jailed for 21 months.
Daniel Glassey
(Image: PA)
A police officer rang a female colleague more than 100 times on a night out and changed shifts to match hers during vile abuse.
Daniel Glassey cheated on his girlfriend with the officer for three months, before bombarding them both with controlling text messages and demanding requests.
The 30-year-old then used threats and physical violence against his fellow officer, just months after striking up a relationship with her.
Glassey, of Dale Lane, Appleton, Warrington, joined Cheshire Police as a special constable in August 2017 and his partner dumped him in June 2018.
He refused to accept her decision and demanded to know where she was and who with in vile and obnoxious texts and phone calls.
Three months before the break up with his partner, in March 2018, Glassey began an affair with a female officer at Cheshire Police.
This officer, who was unaware of his existing relationship, was abused, controlled and harassed daily by Glassey, before another colleague found out in April 2019.
Glassey, who admitted controlling and coercive behaviour and harassment, was jailed for two years and three months.
Sheena Farrell
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Mentally ill Sheena Farrell slashed two policemen after repeatedly refusing to put down a kitchen knife.
An officer on patrol in Fairfield stopped to chat to the “dishevelled” and hooded mum-of-two, to see if she was okay.
But the 43-year-old ignored his requests to take her hands out of her pockets, before revealing a large carving knife.
Bodycam footage showed he sprayed Farrell with CS gas but she fled, so he chased after her and called for back-up.
However, she still wouldn’t drop the weapon and officers were forced to disarm her.
A sergeant repeatedly hit Farrell with his baton, but she slashed and stabbed at him, as they both fell to the ground, then kept saying: “I’m sorry, sorry love.”
The sergeant realised he had a wound on his thumb and a cut to his arm, both requiring stitches, while his colleague’s head was also cut.
Farrell admitted wounding both officers and having a knife in public on December 3 2019 - the drug addict’s first crimes since 1999. She was jailed for two years.
Marvin Haid
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Police took drug dealer Marvin Haid ’s cash, the Audi on his drive and the Rolex on his wrist when they raided his home.
Officers discovered nearly £10,000 in bank notes hidden behind a TV at the 27-year-old’s property in Bethel Road, Wavertree.
An investigation revealed more than £36,000 had also been paid into the crook’s bank account over two-and-a-half years.
Haid offered no explanation for the dirty cash, the Audi A3, or his £3,000 Rolex watch when interviewed by police on July 25, 2019.
But the dad-of-two later tried to convince a probation officer he had only been “minding” the money, including the £36,000.
Prosecutors said the combined value of all the money and items was £57,327, but Haid failed to give an explanation to the police.
Haid admitted two counts of possessing criminal property and possessing cannabis.
Defence lawyers said Haid now accepted his claims were “unrealistic” and he was jailed for two years and one month.
George Fairclough
Masked robber George Fairclough dragged an elderly woman out of bed after attacking her husband.
He pushed his way into the victims' home in Milbrook Crescent, Kirkby after banging on their front door late in the evening.
The male homeowner got up to see who was at the front door, but was met by the 28-year-old thug, who attacked him.
He dragged the man’s wife from her bed, assaulted her and demanded money from the couple, both in their 70s and in poor health.
The husband managed to get help and Fairclough fled, but was arrested the day after the attack, on December 24, 2017.
While the incident was being investigated, both victims sadly died and did not get the chance to see their attacker jailed.
Fairclough had previously been convicted of robbing another elderly man and was recalled to prison on licence.
He admitted attempted robbery and was jailed again for 13 and a half years.
Stephen Beaumont
(Image: cheshire police)
Stephen Beaumont fled from police during a 140mph motorway chase before performing a dangerous U-turn into oncoming traffic.
Dashcam footage taken from an unmarked police BMW tailing him revealed the 30-year-old was going so fast on the M62 that officers couldn’t keep up.
He weaved in and out of traffic after police tried to pull him over near to Junction 9, shortly after 11.30am, on December 2, 2019.
His Ford Fiesta was spotted with false registration plates, but Beaumont, of Beach Road, Litherland, refused to stop, and sped away.
He left the M62 at Junction 7 for Rainhill, in St Helens, before running a red light and re-joining the motorway, on the same carriageway, via the entry slip road.
Beaumont then performed a U-turn against the flow of the traffic, ready to speed away in the wrong direction, but officers stopped the Fiesta by ramming it.
Beaumont was convicted of two counts of dangerous driving, plus driving while disqualified, driving without insurance and handling stolen goods.
He was jailed for two years and three months, and banned from the road for five years and 45 days.
Michael Luckett
(Image: cheshire police)
Police officer Michael Luckett started a sexual relationship with a vulnerable woman he’d arrested for drink driving.
He started seeing the 30-year-old married woman even when her prosecution for drink driving was still ongoing through the courts.
The 32-year-old constable, who served in Warrington for Cheshire Police, informed his managers when the woman contacted him on Facebook Messenger.
The officer had engaged in a 30-minute conversation with the woman, five weeks after her arrest, but he rightly told his supervisor, who strongly advised him to stop all contact, and no action was taken against him.
But later, he unblocked Miss Walker on social media, and started up a friendship, which led to a sexual relationship.
The policeman, with six years experience, again told his union, but an investigation discovered he’d contacted her five weeks before her drink driving case ended.
Luckett, of Snowberry Crescent in Sankey Bridges, Warrington, was convicted of misconduct in a public office and resigned from his post.
He was jailed for 12 months and banned from serving in the force ever again.
Carl Mercer
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Carl Mercer had a semi-automatic pistol in his kitchen drawer but rang 999 to report himself to the police.
He told the operator he was under threat from people making him deal drugs and gave the address of his Bootle home.
When officers arrived he begged to be arrested and produced a small bag of heroin to convince them to put him in their car.
Police entered the 46-year-old’s property in Longfield Road on November 3, 2019 and found 669g of cannabis worth £6,791.
Officers then seized the working Slovakian Grand Power K100 semi-automatic pistol, plus 29 rounds of 9mm ammunition.
Mercer said he owed his dealers a large amount of money so they made him deal the drugs and mind the firearm and ammo.
He admitted possessing a prohibited firearm and ammunition, possessing cannabis with intent to supply, and possessing heroin.
Mercer was previously jailed for five years and one month in 2016 for dealing cocaine, heroin and cannabis, producing cannabis and abstracting electricity.
He was jailed for six years.
Dane Rigby
(Image: merpol)
Dane Rigby was found behind the wheel of his car high on cocaine and ketamine while on bail for a dangerous police chase.
He led officers on a 15-minute pursuit through St Helens after being illegally spotted in a pedestrianised zone for buses and taxis.
The 27-year-old raced away in his Mercedes, at 50mph in a 30mph zone, speeding through a red traffic light and travelling on the wrong side of the road.
Rigby narrowly avoided crashes with other cars, at around 4.30pm on December 4, 2018, and drugs bags were seen being flung out the window.
The former care worker stopped near Victoria Park, and ran from the car where he was chased by an officer, then gave up and said: “I wasn’t driving.”
Rigby admitted dangerous driving over the incident, but just six months later, was caught behind the wheel again, this time in Wigan on June 22.
When he stopped for police, the officer found he and three men in the car all looked “intoxicated”, and Rigby seemed “spaced out”.
The electrician, of Princess Avenue, St Helens, tested positive for cocaine and ketamine, and admitted two counts of drug driving.
He was jailed for 12 months and banned from driving for two and a half years.
Andrew McKenna
(Image: James Maloney/Liverpool Echo)
Speeding police officer Andrew McKenna hit and killed a woman while driving at nearly twice the speed limit.
The 57-year-old was travelling at almost 60mph when he struck Linda Meagor, on Goree, next to The Strand, at rush hour.
The popular council worker, 49, tried to cross the road on her way home from work, despite the fact the pedestrian crossing was on a red light.
But the Merseyside Police officer showed utter contempt for the law as he sped past his own force’s headquarters, which overlook the two roads.
And experts said off-duty McKenna could have avoided the fatal smash, if he hadn’t been doing around 57mph in his black Ford Mondeo at rush hour.
Ms Meagor, a hugely popular figure in Liverpool’s arts community, was struck by the dad-of-one’s vehicle at around 5.30pm on February 15, 2018.
McKenna initially denied any wrongdoing and was set to stand trial, but finally pleaded guilty to causing death by careless driving in January 2020.
The Toxteth based officer retired from Merseyside Police while he was under investigation.
He was jailed for eight months and banned from the road for two years and four months.
Sam Walker
“Career criminal” Sam Walker was found guilty of theft by a jury after just half an hour of deliberations.
The notorious crook was jailed for 33 months in February 2019 over two high speed police chases and hiding a mobile phone in prison.
He was back in the dock in February 2020 charged with stealing a £166.80 replacement car windscreen beforehand.
The 36-year-old took a silver Rover MG ZT to Superfast Autoglazing in St Helens, then drove away without paying after it was fitted.
But he claimed he wasn’t dishonest as he always intended to pay and only fled because he spotted police and thought he was wanted.
The ex-drug dealer had 45 past convictions for 130 offences and made headlines in 2018 after he taunted police online after fleeing to Africa.
Walker, of Beetham Plaza in Liverpool city centre, failed to convince jurors his actions on June 28, 2018 were innocent, despite claiming he arranged for a pal to pay £200.
He was sentenced to 12 weeks in prison and replied: “Nice one.”
Wayne Lee
(Image: merpol)
Wayne Lee used a dagger-type knife to repeatedly stab a Good Samaritan.
The 19-year-old was high on cannabis and ketamine when he and his friends went looking for violence in Liverpool city centre.
He came across an 18-year-old victim, who was trying to help a group of drunk girls who were sat on the kerb, near Concert Square.
One of Lee’s friends confronted him, either grabbing his neck or nicking it with a blade, and the man shouted: “He’s just held a knife to my throat!”
One of the gang punched him and he collapsed, hitting his head on the floor.
Lee joined in the group assault, as the victim was kicked three times to his head until he was unconscious in Fleet Street at 2.30am on December 5, 2019.
The victim suffered a broken nose, bruising to his jaw and concussion, in an attack witnessed by a second 24-year-old victim.
This Good Samaritan pointed to Lee and tried to grab his top, but the teen produced the dagger, wielding the weapon like a knuckle duster.
Shocking CCTV footage showed the victim was knocked to the ground, when Lee, of October Drive, Kensington, repeatedly knifed him.
The victim suffered stab wounds to his chest, left of his spine, three wounds to his temple and the side of his head.
Lee admitted wounding with intent, possessing a knife and assault causing actual bodily harm and was jailed for six years.
Scott McDonald
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Scott McDonald said he was dealing crack cocaine and heroin to pay off his little brother’s drug debt.
The 24-year-old “panicked” when police stopped his friend’s car and frantically ditched his £80 stash in the footwell.
The dad-of-two later confessed to selling the Class A drugs, but claimed he wasn’t the one benefitting from it.
He was arrested at around 4.25pm, on February 27, 2019, with six wraps of heroin and two wraps of crack cocaine.
McDonald, who also had £380 in cash and a “graft” phone, told police his brother was in debt and had taken it on.
He pleaded guilty to supplying crack cocaine and heroin, and possession with intent to supply both drugs.
McDonald was locked up for two years.
Ian Gargan
(Image: merpol)
Jealous Ian Gargan challenged his ex-wife’s new boyfriend to a fist fight before stabbing him eight times.
Gargan, 40, had split up with Joanne Carden, but became angry after Christopher Fuller began living with his former partner and her four children.
One of the youngsters was fathered by Gargan, and after trying unsuccessfully to get in touch with his teenage son, he decided to visit Ms Carden’s home, on Rutland Avenue in Halewood.
At 1am, Gargan armed himself with a 15cm long knife, and while en route he sent a threatening text to 41-year-old Mr Fuller, demanding they meet on an area of grass close to his home, known as The Hollies.
Mr Fuller refused to get involved, coming outside to tell Gargan to go home, on July 31, 2019, but a struggle broke out and Gargan produced the knife.
He stabbed Mr Fuller eight times, one of the blows passing through the sternum and a vital artery, causing a one centimetre incised wound.
Gargan, of Applewood Court, Halewood, initially tried to claim he was acting in self-defence, but admitted wounding with intent.
He was cleared after a trial of attempted murder and jailed for 10 years.
Jason Bascombe
Jason Bascombe was dealing drugs while registered unemployed and claiming disability benefits.
The 27-year-old, of Ascot Drive in Kirkby, was arrested by police, who found photos on his phone showing him posing with large bundles of cash.
Officers pursued a Vauxhall Vectra after it failed to stop in the Newtown area of Wigan on November 4, 2017.
The car was chased, but the driver headed off road and lost police.
When police found the car abandoned there was a quantity of heroin and crack cocaine as well as drug dealing “graft” phones.
Bascombe and a second man were later picked up by police nearby and mobile phone evidence linked him to the drugs.
He was jailed for three years and five months after admitting being concerned in the supply of heroin and cocaine and failing to surrender to police.
Dean Bamber
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Dean Bamber battered his girlfriend in an alleyway until a passerby intervened.
He “straddled” Nicola Wilcock, pinned her down and repeatedly punched and slapped her in the face.
But his shouting and swearing - including calling the victim a “dirty little tramp” - was overheard by Jamie Skelton.
Mr Skelton yelled at Bamber, 45, to stop, but couldn’t reach the couple, because the alleyway gate was locked.
He rang the police and they rescued Miss Wilcock, who was left with a swollen, bruised face and a bloodied nose.
The attack unfolded behind Bamber’s home in Derbyshire Hill Road in St Helens, at around 5.15pm, on October 8, 2019.
Prosecutors said they both “lived a chaotic lifestyle” and were recovering heroin addicts, who were drunk at the time.
Bamber, who has 45 past convictions for 73 offences, admitted assault causing actual bodily harm.
He was jailed for nine months.
Paul Britton
(Image: Merseyside Police)
Paedophile Paul Britton was confronted by the woman he sexually abused from the age of 13.
The woman looked the 56-year-old in the eye in court and said: “I will not let you rob me of having a life.”
Cold-hearted Britton displayed no emotion and stared ahead as she read out a powerful victim personal statement.
The predator had befriended his vulnerable victim and told her “no one would believe” her if she spoke out against him.
She told him: “Last year I tried to kill myself. I felt like I could not carry on and I would never be able to get through this.
“But what justice would that be? You have the right to carry on with your life. Why should you carry on?”
He was found guilty of eight counts of sexual offences against a child under the age of 16, committed in Moreton, Wirral.
Britton, now of Swaffham in Norfolk, was jailed for nine years.
Ian Trainer
(Image: Merseyside Police)
“Nuisance” pensioner Ian Trainer who terrorised his neighbour by playing Classic FM radio at an “unbelievable” volume told a judge “put the ball and chain one me”.
The 82-year-old, of Eaton Drive, Aintree, was given a restraining order in December 2019, which prohibited him from playing “any audio at a volume above normal talking level” between 9am and 10pm.
However, despite having previously been jailed for the same offence, on his release Trainer continued to play loud music.
On Tuesday, December 17, a police officer attended Trainer’s property after being called out for a complaint of noise by his neighbour Thomas Thompson.
When arrested, Trainer said “I like playing music at a level I enjoy” and couldn’t wear headphones because they “irritated his ears”.
Mr Thompson said Trainer played music every day of the week, meaning he went out early and came home late to avoid the noise.
Trainer was convicted of breaching his restraining order and jailed for 24 weeks.
Paul Clarke
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Paul Clarke hit a little boy with a wooden paddle then molested him.
The former nurse, 55, was convicted of four offences of taking indecent images of children in 1996.
But he didn’t reveal this information to the family of a young child and was trusted to look after him on occasion.
The paedophile, then 53, of Walkers Lane, Clock Face, St Helens, got drunk when with the child.
The boy said he then got out his “slapper stick” or “whacker” which he used to hit his bottom, before fondling his penis.
When confronted by the boy’s family, Clarke denied any wrongdoing.
But police searched his home and found more than 202 Category C indecent images of young girls on a pen drive and seized the wooden paddle.
The pervert was convicted of sexual assault and possessing the photos after a trial.
Clarke was jailed for three years.
Shaun Bowes and Steven Gee
Shaun Bowes and Steven Gee attacked a pensioner with a hammer and his own garden fork, leaving him unconscious with a broken leg.
Ernest Stockley, 73, was viciously assaulted by the brothers after he shouted at them from his garden, at around 7.30pm on June 29, 2019.
He told the pair off as they fought with two other women further down the street, before 35-year-old Bowes called him an “old b*****d”.
Mr Stockley held his garden fork out in front to defend himself but Bowes, a dad-of-two, punched him multiple times to the back of the head.
Bowes then snatched the fork and started to attack him with it, causing him to fall to the ground, where he struck him two or three times.
His brother Gee took the fork and the brothers walked back to their home further along the road - Dorothy Street in Thatto Heath, St Helens.
But Gee came back out with a hammer - incensed that his brother had received a small cut - and decided to punish Mr Stockley.
He said “I’ll f***ing kill you for hurting my brother” before repeatedly hitting the victim with the hammer as he lay on the ground.
The OAP was struck on his arms as he tried to protect his head and his left leg was left broken with the bone sticking out.
The keen gardener, who is still on crutches, faced surgery on his knee and had suffered a further infection in his leg wound.
Gee, 37, admitted causing grievous bodily harm with intent and was jailed for 12 years and seven months, with an extended two years on licence.
Bowes, 35, was found guilty of wounding with intent after a trial and jailed for five and a half years.
Michael Stone
Paedophile teacher Michael Stone had sex with a vulnerable pupil at his home while his wife was away.
The then 41-year-old, groomed and abused the girl, 12, while working as an IT teacher at a Merseyside school.
The married man convinced the victim they had a “special relationship”, before he repeatedly molested her over 12 months.
He made the girl perform sex acts in his classroom, in his car, and even brought her back to their house, in the 1990s.
When she was 13, Stone drove her to his Frodsham home when his wife, who was also a teacher, was away and had sex with her.
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Stone admitted two counts of indecent assault, which involved kissing, but denied nine other counts of indecent assault and indecency with a child.
However, when giving evidence during a trial, the now 68-year-old maintained the kisses had just been “pecks” on the cheek.
The jury heard there was no charge relating to Stone having sex with the girl, because there was a time limit for it to have been brought.
Stone, of Silverdale Close, Frodsham, was unanimously found guilty and jailed for six and a half years, with an extended year on licence.
Stephanie Smithwhite
(Image: PA)
Prison officer Stephanie Smithwhite cut a hole in her trousers so she could have sex with Curtis Warren while she was on duty.
The 40-year-old became obsessed with the drugs kingpin - even getting his name tattooed on her body - and sent him erotic love notes.
Smithwhite, who sent him a photo of herself wearing a catsuit, had sex with the career criminal, nicknamed “Cocky,” in the kitchen, laundry room and in his cell at the maximum security HMP Frankland, near Durham.
The steamy tryst lasted for six months, between June and December 2018, while Warren was serving 13 years for conspiracy to import drugs and a further 10-year sentence for failing to pay back £198m in Proceeds of Crime.
(Image: Handout/Scott Heppell/PA Wire)
Investigators found they had called each other 213 times in just three months at the jail, which houses some of the UK’s most infamous killers.
They found a white Samsung phone in her car which was only used to ring one number - traced to Frankland Prison, and used by Warren.
Smithwhite was jailed for two years after admitting two counts of misconduct in a public office, with one charge relating to their sexual relationship.
The second count was linked to her failing to report that Warren, now 56, had a secret mobile phone, said to be no bigger than a £2 coin.
She denied the hole in her prison uniform trousers was for sexual purposes, but Judge Jonathan Carroll said it was “hard to imagine why else it was there.”
Helena Robertson
(Image: cheshirepolice)
Helena Robertson lay in the road and hurled racist abuse at a police officer.
The 42-year-old, of Cunningham Drive, Runcorn, abused a custody suite officer before spitting all over her cell in what a judge branded a “disgraceful” episode.
Robertson was arrested after she turned aggressive on her probation officer in Westfield Road at 5.40pm on January 15.
She rose to her feet and “came at” her, fuming: “You’re my fing probation officer, I’ll fing have you.”
Robertson left the scene and police found her on a bench on Church Street, before she launched into a racist rant when taken into custody.
Earlier that afternoon, Robertson had called 999, claiming a man was pointing something through her window, in a hoax that prompted a fruitless police search.
Robertson was jailed for 10 weeks for breaching a criminal behaviour order.
James Lloyd
(Image: Merseyside Police)
James Lloyd claimed he was “minding” a gun hung up on his girlfriend’s bed.
He was caught red handed with the firearm when officers raided the home of his partner, Billy Jo McGee.
Lloyd suggested he had just been given the lethal Glock pistol and ammunition to hold on to, but a judge rejected his account.
Police were let into the house in Elizabeth Road in Fazakerley by another woman and found 28-year-old Lloyd and 19-year-old Miss McGee asleep next to the gun.
The couple were arrested and denied any wrongdoing.
But Lloyd changed his plea to guilty and Billy Jo McGee was cleared of all charges.
Lloyd, of Bowland Drive, Litherland, had more than 40 previous convictions.
He admitted possessing a prohibited firearm and 14 rounds of 9mm ammunition and was jailed for five years.
Robert Linton
(Image: Merseyside Police)
A terrified woman escaped her killer ex-boyfriend’s clutches after he tried to strangle her and held her hostage.
Robert Linton threw his victim onto the bed at her home in Birkenhead and tied her up with dressing gown cords on December 19, 2019.
The 45-year-old, once known as Robert Noble, was serving a life licence for the murder of American tourist Alyson Kaplan in 2003.
He strangled Ms Kaplan with a scarf in his hotel room in London.
Linton, of Craven Street, Birkenhead, was released from jail in July 2016.
He had confessed his killer past to his new partner during their 20-month relationship.
But the couple split in 2019 and he confronted her after being paranoid about her going on dating websites.
He kept his latest victim hostage in the room for seven hours, but she managed to escape while he slept.
Having already been recalled to prison, Linton admitted false imprisonment.
He was jailed for three years, with two years extended licence.
Michael Waring
(Image: Merseyside Police)
Michael Waring gave a female shop assistant a black eye and threatened to kill her with a bottle of wine.
The 29-year-old punched Hana Bensiad in the face at Quickway Convenience Store in Vauxhall, after she stopped him leaving without paying for a £15 bottle of gin.
Waring took a bottle of wine from the display and smashed it on the door in an attempt to smash the glass, so that he could escape on December 16, 2019.
When that failed, Waring went behind the counter, grabbed frightened customer Daisy Gill and threatened to kill her, saying he had a knife, then punched Ms Bensiad in the face, causing a black eye.
Waring, of Vescock Street, Everton, admitted robbery and criminal damage.
He was jailed for four years and three months.
Kurtis Nelson and Lee Brown
A crowbar-wielding burglar who was told he would miss the birth of his children while behind bars snapped back at the judge, bragging he would be “out in a week”.
Kurtis Nelson, 26, tried to jump out of the window of a stolen Audi A3 as it was rammed by police.
Nelson, of Kemsley Road, Dovecot, earlier carried out a burglary at Spitroast restaurant in Ormskirk, but it was interrupted by officers.
He was injured in the crash, which also saw getaway driver Lee Brown, 26, of Muirhead Avenue, West Derby, bump into the police car during a 90mph chase.
Prosecutors said they and a third unknown man smashed their way into three businesses in the space of a few hours to steal tills and safes.
Brown admitted three burglaries, using a stolen car and driving offences and was sentenced to a total of 50 weeks in jail and banned from driving for two years.
Nelson pleaded guilty to the burglaries and assaulting a police officer.
He was handed a 38-week prison sentence but declared: “I’ll be out in a week.”
Norman Search
(Image: merpol)
Pensioner Norman Search repeatedly sexually assaulted a young girl and tried to pretend it was to explain “where babies came from”.
Search molested the child, who was under the age of 10, at different locations.
On seven occasions, the 74-year-old committed sex acts against the girl, which has left her emotionally and mentally scarred.
Search, of Tenlands Drive in Prescot, had told the girl it was “their secret”.
Search, who pleaded guilty to seven counts of sexual abuse, was jailed for nine years and nine months.
Brendan Rawlins
Brendan Rawlins tried to strangle a young mum with his phone charger and held a rusty knife to her neck.
The 37-year-old broke into the woman’s home and threatened to kill her, saying: “I’ll cut you up and hide you and no one will ever know.”
The thug was laughing as he made the threats and claimed he was going to cut her head off, before tightening the wire around her throat.
Rawlins also put the blade to the victim’s neck and the petrified mum “could feel the cold edge of the metal”.
She eventually managed to escape and ran to a nearby bed and breakfast, where she arrived “hysterical and crying”, on August 18, 2019.
Rawlins, of Brelade Road, Stoneycroft, who had 15 convictions for 47 offences,admitted two counts of making threats to kill and one of a common assault.
Judge Robert Warnock described unrepentant Rawlins as a “violent, selfish man” and jailed him for five years and two months.
David Almond
Paedophile David Almond left one of his victims in “hell and purgatory” as a result of his hideous abuse.
The 76-year-old sexually assaulted three girls and one boy, who were all under the age of 14, in the 1980s and 1990s.
He was arrested in 2017 and charged with eight counts of indecent assault and four counts of indecency with a child.
Almond, of Summertrees Avenue, Greasby, Wirral, denied any wrongdoing, but was found guilty after a trial.
One female victim read: “I feel that my abuser stole and forever changed my childhood spirit.
“I have hit rock bottom so many times, I have visited hell and purgatory for no fault of my own.”
Almond was jailed for 13 years, with an extended year on licence.
Daniel Lockley
Daniel Lockley claimed £30,000 of cocaine and cannabis found in his car and home was for “personal use”.
Police stopped the BMW the 35-year-old was driving in Warrington shortly before midnight on January 15, 2020.
They found wraps of cocaine, electronic scales and plastic bags, plus a tick list, during a search of the car in Great Sankey.
Officers later recovered “significant quantities” of cannabis in a raid at his home in Willoughby Close, and an address in Livingstone Close, both in Warrington.
It was then Lockley made the ludicrous claim that all of the Class A and Class B drugs were for his own consumption.
But forensic analysis of his mobile phones revealed numerous drug-related messages, including offers to sell both drugs.
He admitted possessing cocaine and cannabis with intent to supply and was jailed for three years.
Lee Abbott
(Image: Cheshire Police)
Lee Abbott knifed pub landlord Christian Thornton to death after he barred him from the Hammer & Pincers in Widnes.
Sickening CCTV footage showed the drunken kickboxer pull a kitchen knife out of a rucksack and plunge it into his victim’s heart.
The thug, whose blade snapped in half, later told armed police when arrested: “You don’t need any evidence, I stabbed him to f***.”
But following his apparent confession, he decided to deny murder and forced the dad-of-three’s family to endure a harrowing trial.
Abbott, 35, of Rose Street, Widnes, admitted manslaughter and possessing an offensive weapon in public on Sunday, August 11, 2019.
He had previously threatened to burn down the 49-year-old victim’s pub, above which he lived with his wife, children and family dog.
The dad-of-two told jurors he was a paranoid “madman” who “lost the plot” after being sexually abused by a “gangster” as a teenager.
The ex-cocaine addict said he used to think he was Jesus and the attack was “a cry for help” and the culmination of “20 years of hell”.
However, even his own psychiatric expert agreed he was not psychotic at the time and had no defence of “diminished responsibility”.
After a jury found Abbott guilty of murder, Judge Brian Cummings, QC, said the killing was “an act of both brutality and cowardice”.
Abbott was jailed for life, with a minimum of 28 years.
John McCarfrae
(Image: Merseyside Police)
John McCarfrae was punched by a brave teenage girl during a despicable burglary.
The 43-year-old broke into an Old Swan home while the householder was asleep downstairs on January 22, 2020.
But the victim’s son and his girlfriend arrived and disturbed him as he stole items, including a dummy and rosary beads.
McCarfrae fled downstairs, but was tripped over by the girl, who then stood on the back of his feet, until he grabbed her.
She punched him twice and they began to wrestle, only for the burglar to push her against a parked car outside the house.
The girl began screaming and her boyfriend and his dad rushed out and were able to tackle McCarfrae to the ground.
Police arrived and seized a rucksack of tools, including gloves and mole grips, from McCarfrae, who had taken crack cocaine.
He later claimed he had been “on a bender” and someone told him how to remove locks from doors to get into houses.
The crook, formerly of Eccleshill Road, Stoneycroft, admitted burglary, assault and another attempted burglary.
He was jailed for two years and eight months.
Callum Catterall
(Image: cheshirepolice)
Ungrateful brat arsonist Callum Catterall set fire to his uncle’s flat in Widnes because he wanted some “attention”.
The 20-year-old was homeless until his mum arranged for his uncle to let him stay with him to provide some stability and access to support.
But the cannabis addict betrayed that generosity by first damaging his uncle’s TV and coffee table, then setting fire to paper under a bed and curtains.
Catterall fled the first-floor Halton Housing flat and headed to a Tesco Extra, where he told a security guard “I set my own flat on fire” and “you’ll see me in the paper tomorrow for burning down my own flat”, on October 26, 2019.
A woman in the flat below was woken by smoke alarms and reported the blaze.
After firefighters tackled the blaze, Catterall arrived on a stolen bike and told his family: “Yeah, so what? You left me in the flat for two days.”
He later claimed he did it “to get attention from his mother” and admitted causing more than £3,000 of damage.
Catterall admitted arson reckless as to whether life endangered and was locked up for three years.
Adam Rice
Drug dealing taxi driver Adam Rice was caught red-handed with a stash of cocaine and almost £2,000 in cash.
The 29-year-old denied supplying to passengers, but admitted delivering wraps to drug users to pay off his gambling debts.
Police spotted Rice driving a Vauxhall Astra on Gorsey Lane, Litherland on the evening of February 10, 2019.
A man got in the car and it drove off, but he got out again after a short distance, so officers stopped Rice in nearby Pendle Drive.
They found 17 wraps of cocaine and £1,900 in cash, two snap bags of cannabis bush and resin, and cannabis grinders.
Rice, of Chesterfield Road, Crosby, was jailed for three years.
Mitchel Watson
(Image: Merseyside Police)
Sick paedophile Mitchel Watson burst into tears and claimed “he couldn’t help” amassing child sex abuse images.
The 23-year-old, of Clifton Place, West Derby, was found to have nearly 7,000 “foul” indecent images of children.
More than 500 of the photos, downloaded and shared by the pervert, were ranked Category A - the most serious.
Watson’s behaviour culminated in him sending lewd messages to what he thought was a 14-year-old boy in Texas.
He asked the boy to send naked photos, sent over pictures of his genitals, and discussed sex with the child.
Watson admitted 10 sexual offences including possessing, downloading and distributing indecent images, and communicating sexually with a person under 16.
He was jailed for two years.
Adam Bennett
Adam Bennett controlled a woman he met on Tinder and even threatened to kidnap their baby after she fell pregnant.
He was serving a 21-month sentence for tormenting a different ex-girlfriend, once dousing her in cleaning spray and vowing to set her on fire.
But it emerged the 28-year-old had subjected a second woman to a similar hellish experience, who he was seeing at the same time.
Bennett’s relationship with this victim fluctuated, particularly when she discovered he’d been two-timing her with another woman.
The plumber, of Pinehurst Road, Anfield, even pledged to slash his girlfriend’s mum’s face, warning that she “needed silencing”,
Bennett, who admitted controlling and coercive behaviour, also admitted escaping lawful custody in September 2019 when he fled the dock.
He was handed an additional 10 months behind bars.
Birkenhead burglary gang
A Birkenhead-based gang were responsible for 30 commercial burglaries and five vehicle thefts.
They targeted pubs, restaurants, bus depots, convenience stores, social clubs and even dry cleaners during their crime spree.
In an attempt to evade capture, the gang stole number plates and used them on stolen vehicles when out on crime jobs.
They used a stolen high powered Audi S4 car to target businesses and homes in areas including Chester, Ellesmere Port, Wirral, between August and November 2019.
Their crime spree was brought to an end on November 7, 2019 when officers raided the suspects' homes and seized stolen property, clothing, tools and mobile phones.
Gary Platt, 43, of Anthorn Close, Noctorum, Birkenhead; Kieran Platt, 25, of Sandalwood Drive, Noctorum, Birkenhead; Joseph Salla, 19, of Oakleaf Mews, Noctorum, Birkenhead; Joshua Wilkinson, 22, of Dalesway, Heswall; Lee Hodgin, 33, of Lansdowne Road, Birkenhead; and Peter Mighall, 45, of no fixed address; were arrested and all admitted conspiracy to commit burglary.
There sentences were: Gary Platt, six years, Kieran Platt, six years, Salla, four and a half years, Wilkinson, four and a half years, Hodgin, six years and nine months, Mighall, three years and nine months.
Sean Cleaver
(Image: Cumbria Police)
Sean Cleaver peddled heroin in Cumbria and tried to “nobble” a frail drug addict he’d helped brutally rob.
The debt-ridden crook was 23 when he travelled to Carlisle during early 2017 to supply the Class A drug as part of a county lines group.
Cleaver and teenage partner-in-crime Braden Moreton were stopped by police on February 3 having travelled 120 miles by taxi on a suspected drugs run.
Both were later released by police who found no illegal substances.
The pair returned four days later, initially visiting a first-floor flat on Carlisle’s Old Harraby estate at the centre of an illegal home takeover tactic known as “cuckooing”.
With two others, they then went to the ground-floor property below where Cleaver - nicknamed “JP” - demanded drug debt money from addict and chronic osteoarthritis sufferer Paul Savage.
Cleaver violently attacked 49-year-old Mr Savage while Moreton - then aged 18 - set on him with a hammer, a wrench and even the man’s own crutch, which left him with a broken jaw and placed in an induced coma.
Cleaver - the subject of a BBC Crimewatch appeal while on the run - admitted being concerned in heroin supply, robbery and perverting the course of justice, which related to his efforts to stop Mr Savage giving evidence.
Police caught Cleaver, 26, of Gresham Street, Fairfield, after he was hospitalised after being attacked by four males wielding knives and a baseball bat. He suffered a broken tibia, was stabbed and slashed repeatedly to the face, arm and legs.
He was jailed for 12 years.
Brendan Cole
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Brendan Cole stabbed a Jobcentre security guard in the back then blamed it on seeing his best friend knifed to death.
The 19-year-old attacked his victim with a large carving knife at the Jobcentre Plus in Belle Vale in October 2019.
Cole previously witnessed Danny Gee-Jamieson, 16, being stabbed in a park “straightener” in 2018.
But it didn’t stop him taking a blade to a Jobcentre appointment at 11am on October 7, 2019, when he was aggressive with the woman interviewing him.
Asked to leave, he said “I’m going to batter her, I’m going to rip her fing face off” and told a security guard “you’re not going to fing stop me”.
CCTV footage showed Cole throw two punches and a kick at his victim, then stab him in the back, leaving a wound requiring four stitches.
The teen, of Lee Park Avenue, Gateacre, also kicked another guard, and threatened him “I will stab you”, before he fled.
He admitted wounding with intent, assault and possessing an offensive weapon in public - the second time he has been caught with a knife.
Judge David Aubrey, QC, said he had hoped Cole seeing his friend killed would have made him choose to never carry a knife again.
He locked him up for five years and three months, with an extended three years on licence.
Badruldin Ahmed and Yusuf Omar
(Image: Liverpool ECHO)
Clubland drug dealers Badruldin Ahmed and Yusuf Omar were part of a Liverpool city centre cocaine trade.
They were arrested in an investigation into a network of dealers who roamed the Ropewalks area, targeting party-goers with cocaine, heroin, ketamine, MDMA and cannabis.
They hung around on Bold Street, Slater Street, Wood Street and Concert Square and made little attempt to blend into the thousands of clubbers that surrounded them.
(Image: Liverpool ECHO)
As well as selling drugs they would rip off some customers by selling them crushed paracetamol rather than cocaine.
Yusuf Omar, 26, of Geraint Street, Toxteth was sentenced to four years for conspiracy to supply cocaine.
Badruldin Ahmed, 32, of Whittier Street, Toxteth was sentenced to three years, nine months for conspiracy to supply cocaine.
David McCrimmon
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
David McCrimmon swigged stolen whiskey and threatened a customer with a knife to get sent back to jail.
The “institutionalised” shoplifter walked into Kelly’s Discount Booze in Litherland and took a bottle of Frosty Jack’s Cider.
The 44-year-old serial crook, of no fixed address, then asked a member of staff for a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.
But he “simply walked out the store” and when followed by a worker, threw the cap at him and started drinking it.
He tried to get in the shop again and when a brave customer intervened, pulled out a bloodstained kitchen knife and said: “I just want to get arrested again, I’m part of the institution, that’s why I’ve got to do this.”
McCrimmon, who has 15 past convictions for 21 offences, admitted theft, possession of a knife and threatening with a blade.
The alcoholic, who has mental health issues, once sexually assaulted a 13-year-old schoolgirl, putting his hand up her dress.
He was jailed for 18 months and banned from Kelly’s Discount Booze.
Michael Wilde
(Image: Runcorn Weekly News)
Chemistry teacher Michael Wilde molested a pupil on three separate occasions during the 1970s when he taught at Wade Deacon High School in Widnes.
The young boy needed two bladder operations later in life because of the abuse.
Dad-of-three Wilde, now 70, was jailed for a fourth time in February, with all his convictions linked to a spree of offending during the early to mid 1970s.
Since the first batch of abuse was reported in the media, more victims have come forward, with a total of seven boys, now adults, complaining to police.
The latest victim, who only discovered Wilde’s abuse of other boys when a taxi driver mentioned it as they drove past the Widnes school, kept his secret for decades before disclosing it to his brother and wife.
The pervert, of Drake Close, Warrington - whose wife attended court to support him - admitted three counts of indecent assault and was jailed for 12 months.
Gerrard Gandy
A drug baron behind a £12m cocaine and ecstasy racket told fellow inmates “I’m f***ed” when caught with an iPhone in jail.
Gerrard Gandy was one of the leaders of a gang who supplied Class A drugs between Merseyside, Lancashire and the south coast.
Lancashire Police recovered 53kg of cocaine and 150,000 ecstasy tablets, plus more than £250,000 in dirty cash, during an operation launched in March 2014.
From a caravan on Fleet Lane in St Helens they seized 35kg of high purity cocaine and more than £200,000 in cash - the force’s largest ever cocaine haul.
Gandy, then 34, was jailed for 14 years for conspiracy to supply Class A drugs and money laundering offences in August 2015.
The dealer, of Orrell Road, Wigan, was serving his sentence at Category D open prison HMP Sudbury in Derbyshire in 2019.
Prison guards spotted now 39-year-old Gandy inside another inmate’s cell, at around 6.40pm on Friday, August 23, 2019.
He was acting suspiciously and when an iPhone 6 on a bed was seized and he was led away, he told other inmates: “I’m f***ed.”
Gandy admitted possessing a prohibited item in jail and was sentenced to six months in jail, consecutive to his existing term.
John Manley
John Manley “erupted like a volcano” and smashed up a Travelodge with a digger over not being paid.
He left a “trail of destruction” and £443,000 of damage at the newly built hotel at Liverpool Innovation Park off Edge Lane.
Mobile phone footage captured the dad-of-two going on a rampage while yelling: “All you had to do was pay me my £600.”
It was revealed the 35-year-old’s wages hadn’t been paid for 12 days, meaning he had to go without electricity and food.
And Manley - who couldn’t have his children to stay over as a result - said the argument took him back to his childhood abuse.
His defence lawyers said he first tried to kill himself at the age of 10 and told doctors he “just totally lost it” on January 21, 2019.
Prosecutors said he “tore” into the almost complete 71-bed hotel in a Bobcat hydraulic digger destroying ceiling, walls and wiring.
One of two workers managed to disconnect the fuel line despite Manley, of St Aidan’s Way, Netherton, swinging the digger around.
It was subcontractor MF Groundworks who owed him money but the hotel couldn’t open for six weeks, leaving many workers out of pocket.
Manley had seven past convictions for criminal damage, had threatened his mum at knifepoint, and was convicted of harassment to a partner.
Judge David Aubrey, QC, said: “What you did was totally and utterly disproportionate to any grievance you may have had concerning your wages and anyone who thinks otherwise is misguided. It was destruction in the extreme.”
He jailed Manley for five years and four months, and banned him from driving for four years and one month.
Michael Wilkinson
(Image: Merseyside Police)
Michael Wilkinson stabbed a rival drug dealer to death in a turf war for control of the Southdene area of Kirkby .
The 19-year-old lay in wait for James Halewood, 21, before plunging a blade 11cm deep into his left armpit.
James fled to a nearby store - telling a shop worker he had been attacked by “Mikey” - but died around 90 minutes later .
Wilkinson, 19, was seen by a witness calmly leaving in a Renault Megane after the afternoon attack, on July 7, 2019.
He then ditched his iPhone and the car, shaved his distinctive “ketwig” hair, and went into hiding in the Tower Hill area.
The drug dealer, of Mosslawn Road, claimed he did this because he heard there was a “bounty” on his head.
(Image: Merseyside Police)
He denied any involvement in the attack, despite admitting he was driving in the area in a Megane at the time of the stabbing.
Wilkinson, who did not have any previous convictions, was found guilty of murder by a majority of 10-2, following a two-week trial.
Judge David Aubrey, QC, said: “You were a member of a group who were seeking to dominate and take control of the Southdene area of Kirkby.”
He added: “The deceased also supplied drugs and thus there was rivalry if not a feud between two opposing groups.”
The judge said he was “streetwise” and wanted to get “vengeance” because James hadn’t heeded prior threats and warnings.
He jailed Wilkinson for life, with a minimum of 20 years behind bars.
Mark Jones
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Mark Jones tried to rape a little girl when her mum’s back was turned - then pretended to be asleep.
The monster - who unbeknown to the child’s parents was already a convicted sex offender - targeted his victim in 2019.
The 36-year-old, of Bronington Avenue, Bromborough, launched a drunken attack on the defenceless infant at his house.
She screamed and her mum - who was outside having a cigarette - rushed in and found her daughter extremely upset.
Jones pretended to be asleep, but the child told her mum what had happened and later described the attack to the police.
The paedophile was convicted of attempted rape after a trial.
Jones was previously jailed for 10 months in 2015 for twice sexually assaulting a woman in another drunken attack.
He was jailed for 11 years, with an extended five years on licence.
James Kelly’s £8m cocaine gang
(Image: merpol)
Six men ran a £8m cocaine trafficking plot around England and Wales.
The organised criminal gang (OCG) sourced wholesale high purity coke on Merseyside, and transported it across the country.
Using high tech Encro Phones, which makes messages invisible to investigating detectives, they ran their enterprise from a house in St Helens.
(Image: merpol)
The devices are favoured by criminals, costing £1,400 for six months of use.
Up to 500kgs of cocaine were packaged up and sent out to locations including Bradford, Bolton, Newcastle, London, Surrey, Nottingham, Scunthorpe, Grimsby, Sheffield and Wrexham.
(Image: merpol)
The six traffickers included 36-year-old ringleader James Kelly, who controlled the hub from his Bleak Hill Road house, who was handed 19 years behind bars.
His brother, 42-year-old Stephen Kelly, of Rumford Place, Liverpool city centre was the “money man” and was entrusted to launder the cash for the mob. He was sentenced to 20 years and nine months.
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Marc Dermott, 32, kept record books, or ticklists, at his address on Southgate Road in Old Swan, which referenced the drug deals taking place around the country, but also two fully-working Russian pistols, and viable ammunition, some from Bulgaria. He was sentenced to 19 years and six months.
Dean Woods, 37, of Water Street, Liverpool city centre, was a high-level and “highly-trusted” member of the gang, who undertook 30 trips to deliver cocaine or collect bags of cash. He was jailed for 12 years.
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Main courier Paul Speedy, 57, of Cumberland Close in Anfield, was a “highly active courier” who was James Kelly’s “go-to man” and remained loyal to the ringleader. He was sentenced to eight years and eight months.
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Temporary courier Liam Hart, 36, of Kerr Close, Kirkby, who was only recruited into the operation when Speedy went on holiday to Turkey, was handed six years and nine months behind bars.
All pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply Class A drugs and Dermott also admitted two counts of firearm possession, and one of ammunition possession.
Jake Glenholmes
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Deli Mob gangster Jake Glenholmes confronted a fellow prisoner with a “fearsome” improvised weapon at HMP Liverpool.
Prison officers believed the 27-year-old intended to attack the inmate, who was being escorted from his cell at Walton jail.
But the other man lashed out, before guards dragged both to the floor and seized a “sharpened metal pole” from Glenholmes.
Defence lawyers suggested Glenholmes, of Dunluce Street, Walton, carried the weapon because of the notoriety of his gang.
Glenholmes was locked up for four years and eight months in 2016, after police found a £32,000 cannabis farm in his home.
He admitted producing cannabis,
From gangland hitmen to puppy killers: 500 people locked up in Merseyside in 2019
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Murderers, gun thugs, rapists, paedophiles and international drug smugglers were among the criminals jailed across Merseyside in 2019.
Often victims showed tremendous courage in facing their evil tormentors in court, or fighting back against the thugs who targeted them.
Police officers spent months and, in some cases, years working tirelessly to bring these callous criminals to justice for their horrific crimes.
Below are the details of more than 500 of the men and women put behind bars in 2019.
Steven Boyle and Mark Fellows
One of the biggest gangland trials in this country’s recent history saw two underworld figures jailed for life.
Mark Fellows, 38, shot and killed gangland enforcer John Kinsella while he was walking his dogs with his pregnant girlfriend in Rainhill in April 2018.
The ‘Iceman’ assassin was also convicted of gunning down Salford’s ‘Mr Big’, Paul Massey, outside his home three years earlier in July 2015.
Steven Boyle, 36, who acted as a ‘spotter’ for Fellows when he killed dad-of-two Kinsella, was jailed for life with a minimum of 33 years behind bars.
Boyle, of Sandy Way, Heywood, Rochdale, was cleared of any involvement in the death of dad-of-five Massey, 55.
He turned on his partner in crime and ‘grassed’ when giving evidence midway through the murder trial, saying he was “duped” by Fellows into unwittingly being part of Kinsella’s murder.
There were gasps in the public gallery as he claimed he thought he was going to collect drugs money, but was passed a rucksack containing a Webley revolver.
Fellows, of Sandy Lane West in Warrington, was handed a whole life sentence for the murders.
Both men were found not guilty of the attempted murder of 53-year-old Kinsella’s pregnant partner Wendy Owen.
Anthony Cullen and his gang
The callous criminals who ran a massive gun and drug trafficking operation have now been locked up.
It took Cheshire Police 18 months to take down the major operation which saw a lethal arsenal of weapons, including an AK47 assault Rifle and pump-action shotgun taken from the streets of Warrington.
The haul was the biggest firearms seizure in the force’s history.
The 20-strong gang was headed by Anthony Cullen, now jailed for 27 years, and his twin brother Leon, who is on the run from police.
The Warrington pair, alongside right hand man Robert Bibby and ‘armourer’ Chris Houghton, established a lucrative cocaine trafficking network.
20 men were jailed for more than 185 years combined after being convicted of a raft of drug and firearms charges at Liverpool Crown Court.
Keio Nei
(Image: Liverpool ECHO)
Keio Nei, 24, sent an internet blogger horrific threats then travelled from Estonia to her home with a “sinister” kit including a “gold” sex toy.
Nei became so obsessed with the YouTube personality that she contacted police who warned him via Estonian authorities to leave her alone.
He then flew to the UK in April last year and sent the young woman tweets including photos of her home in Liverpool, before speaking to her dad as the situation escalated.
(Image: Crown Prosecution Service)
Nei, who agreed he made a lot of effort to find his victim, admitted stalking, but denied it was with intent to commit a sexual offence.
He stood trial, but after police told the jury they did not think he was carrying the bag when chased, prosecutors dropped the charge.
Nei, of no fixed address, was jailed for 21 months and will be repatriated to Estonia after his release.
Jason Burrell
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Jason Burrell groomed a schoolgirl on Facebook then threatened to rape her when she spurned his advances.
The twisted pervert pretended to be 17 when chatting with his 14-year-old victim, but he was in fact 26.
He was on licence from prison at the time, having previously been jailed for trying to talk a 12-year-old child into sex.
Burrell, from Wallasey but now of Great Homer Street, Everton, smirked in the dock when prosecutors read out the “chilling” messages he sent his latest traumatised victim .
But the smile was wiped off his face when a top judge said he was a dangerous offender and hit him with an extended sentence.
Paul Higginson
A convicted murderer was jailed AGAIN only about a year after being released from prison.
Higginson, who served 15 years for murder, was jailed for his part in a £3m drugs plot.
The 40-year-old, from Kirkby was found guilty of conspiracy to supply cocaine and conspiracy to produce amphetamine.
Higginson played a major role in the largely Manchester-based gang that plotted to produce 300kg of amphetamine with the help of a Hungarian chemist.
The gang would drop off and collect cocaine around the UK, including in Merseyside.
Among those jailed alongside him were husband and wife Sam (35) and Jennifer O’Neill (31), who have five children together, 34-year-old Gary O’Regan, 52-year-old Partick Warde and 27-year-old Darren Gill.
Anthony Wales
(Image: Merseyside Police)
Anthony Wales was caught for his part in the murder and imprisonment of Joseph McKeever after he left DNA on a toilet seat.
Mr McKeever was imprisoned and killed over £130,000 of missing cannabis and was brutally beaten while he was held captive.
Wales, 37, was due to stand trial but changed his plea to guilty after hearing the weight of evidence against him.
The dad-of-five was told he must serve a minimum of 24 years behind bars despite claiming he was unaware of Mr McKeever being strangled and that he wasn’t involved.
Mr McKeever was strangled to death with a ligature before his killers tried to destroy his mutilated body in a car fire.
Wales was part of the group who transported him from a container at convicted murderer Jamie Grimes ' workplace at MGM Garage in Kensington to convicted Darren Colecozy ’s flat at Picton Crescent in Wavertree.
He was caught after leaving his DNA on a toilet, when he relieved himself at the flat.
Last year, murderer Grimes, 22, of Breckside Park, Anfield - who said he attacked Mr McKeever over £130,000 of missing cannabis - was jailed for life with a minimum of 27 years.
Karl Kelly, 32, of Snaefell Avenue, Old Swan, and Darren Colecozy, 23, of no fixed address but from Wavertree - both convicted of manslaughter - were jailed for 22 years each.
Dylan Owen, 23, of Paul McCartney Way, Kensington, was cleared of any part in Mr McKeever’s death but admitted destroying his car and Grimes’ van and was jailed for six years.
Michelle Starkey
(Image: merpol)
The personal finance adviser targeted a vulnerable alcoholic customer and stole nearly £12,000.
The 53-year-old, who worked for a Lloyds branch in Huyton, transferred 14 separate transactions from the victim, believed to have been in her 60s, who has since died.
Sharkey controlled two accounts relating to the victim and swiped money into her partner David’s account, and also Irene Dennett, her elderly mother.
The former banker defrauded the woman over a 12 month period, between February 2017 and January 2018.
Sharkey was jailed for 12 months at Liverpool Crown Court.
Ronald Scott
This explosive thief was jailed for blowing up a cash machine that caused a whole street to shake.
The blast shattered windows, destroyed a bus stop and caused thousands of pounds of damage to a bridal shop in Rose Lane on Monday December 3.
The 52-year-old pleaded guilty to causing an explosion likely to endanger life, criminal damage and attempted theft.
Scott, from Plover Drive in Runcorn, was sentenced to eight years in prison at Liverpool Crown Court.
Father Francis William Simpson
(Image: gmp)
A former Liverpool parish priest was locked up for a catalogue of sickening sex attacks on young boys decades ago.
Father Francis William Simpson, now 71, had been parish priest at Our Lady Queen of Peace Catholic Church in Kirkstone Road West, Litherland, before moving to Chorley in 2016.
On Friday, January 25 a jury at Bolton Crown Court convicted him of nine counts of indecent assault following a 10 day trial.
The court heard Simpson sexually touched the boys while a priest at Worsley Mesnes St Jude’s Church in Wigan during the 1980s.
They were not believed to have been linked to his time in Litherland some years later.
On Tuesday, January 29, a judge sentenced Simpson to 26 months in prison.
He was placed on the Sex Offender’s Register for ten years and is banned from working with children in the future.
Simpson will never be able to return to the church as a minister after his sentence.
The Archdiocese of Liverpool, of which Simpson was formerly part, apologised for his crimes.
Kieran Murphy
(Image: Merseyside Police)
A serial criminal with “an appalling record” led police through the streets of Merseyside on a dangerous chase, reaching eye-watering speeds of 120mph.
Kieran Murphy, branded a “disgrace to his family” by a judge, was part of a gang who stole a Volkswagen Golf from a family’s home in Formby before cloning the number plates and speeding down the A580 East Lancs Road with cops cars and the force helicopter on his tail.
The 22-year-old raced away close to the Haydock island roundabout, ignoring pursuing police for up to six minutes on an eight-mile chase on October 6 last year, Liverpool Crown Court was told.
Murphy used filter lanes to try and escape the attentions of the police, narrowly avoiding oncoming traffic as he reached nearly twice the speed limit.
Police used a stinger device but Murphy continued driving when steering on just the tyre rim, prosecutor Raymond Smith said.
Officers boxed in the stolen Golf before it collided with the police vehicle and came to a stop, near Carr Mill Dam reservoir in St Helens.
Murphy has 15 previous convictions for 34 offences, including similar cases of aggravated vehicle taking, breaching Anti Social Behaviour Orders, and a driving ban of three years and three months.
Murphy, who has been kept behind bars since last October, also committed the police chase offence while out on licence for another matter, the court was told.
Liam Rosney
(Image: Peter Byrne/PA Wire)
A man was jailed for causing the death of the 75-year-old mum of Wirral Olympic gold medallist Chris Boardman.
Mrs Boardman, from Hoylake, whose cyclist son Chris won gold at the 1992 Olympics, suffered multiple injuries when she was hit by Liam Rosney’s Mitsubishi pick-up truck after falling from her bike on a mini-roundabout in Connah’s Quay, North Wales, on July 16 2016.
Rosney admitted causing her death by careless driving at Mold Crown Court last year, and was jailed for 30 weeks on Thursday, January 31.
Sentencing Rosney at Mold, Judge Rhys Rowlands said: “This was an accident which could have easily been prevented and your contribution to that accident is significant in as much as you were distracted, the distraction being as a result of you using your mobile phone before the actual collision.”
Rosney, of Welland Drive in Connah’s Quay, was also disqualified from driving for 18 and a half months.
Jamie Worrall and Paul Alban
A “despicable” burglar who killed his ex-girlfriend’s hamster is back behind bars for stealing a little girl’s birthday money .
Jamie Worrall stamped to death his former partner’s pet while trashing her home in a spiteful and cowardly attack.
But the cocaine addict, now 30, of Alder Street, Newton-le-Willows, carried out two more shocking burglaries last year.
He broke into a pensioner’s property while the victim slept upstairs, then, while on bail for that raid, ransacked a young family’s home. On that occasion, he helped himself to £400 in cash from their bedroom and £60 from their five and 11-year-old children’s money boxes.
Worrall admitted two counts of burglary, five counts of fraud and being carried in a vehicle taken without consent.
His accomplice Paul Alban, 28, of Cherry Tree Drive, St Helens, admitted burglary, two counts of fraud, unauthorised taking of a motor vehicle, possessing cannabis and asked for another burglary to be taken into consideration.
Both were jailed at Liverpool Crown Court for 45 months.
Jordan Edge
A prolific burglar tracked down by his dirty underpants was hit with more jail time after stashing crack cocaine up his bum.
Jordan Edge carried out a spate of raids but was undone when a disgusted victim found his soiled underpants in their back yard.
The baby-faced “three strike” burglar confessed and was locked up for 33 months at Liverpool Crown Court in November 2017.
Edge, of Wheatland Lane, Wallasey, who has notched up a staggering 72 convictions, was due to be released from prison this May.
But the now 21-year-old was forced to appear at the court again over drug dealing offences, which date back to early 2017.
The judge was jailed for 32 months.
Luminata Dumitru
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
A young mum robbed and burgled disabled victims when she found herself broke just months after moving to the UK.
Luminata Dumitru, 20, left Romania with her one-year-old daughter to join her boyfriend and mother-in-law living in Aintree.
Liverpool Crown Court heard her partner walked out on them and Dumitru turned to crime to support her family.
Shocking CCTV footage showed her mugging a deaf man at a Liverpool city centre ATM, then raiding sheltered housing in Knotty Ash.
Dumitru, of no fixed address, speaking with the assistance of a Romanian interpreter, admitted robbery and two counts of burglary.
She sobbed in the dock as Judge Andrew Menary, QC, sentenced her to three years in a young offenders institution.
John Owens
(Image: merseyside police)
John Owens killed his mum after giving her a “back-handed slap” during a drunken row at her home .
Julie Owens, 52, died 11 days after the bust-up at her home in Wavertree on August 22, last year, Liverpool Crown Court heard.
Her son John Owens, 30, had initially denied the manslaughter of his mum , but then re-entered a plea of guilty to the unlawful killing.
Owens, who is almost profoundly deaf, but can lip-read, began to lose his hearing from the age of 16, and suffered from depression, anxiety and took medication for seizures.
He also suffered from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and was diagnosed with Schizophrenia and Asperger’s syndrome last May.
Judge Andrew Menary, QC, described Owens' actions as “unjustified and wholly unnecessary.”
The judge handed Owens a four-and-a-half years sentence.
John Connolly
(Image: Merseyside Police)
A callous car thief who fled a serious crash at a busy junction which left a woman with life changing injuries was jailed.
Dramatic dash-cam footage captured the moment John Connolly, 26, climbed out of a stolen Golf after a serious accident at a busy junction in Dovecot last November.
Connolly, who had tried to speed through a red light, ran off wearing a bright pink dressing gown and was arrested nearby.
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A woman had to be cut free from her car after the smash and was in hospital for three weeks after the crash.
Connolly, who was out of prison on licence at the time of the smash, was jailed for 28 months and banned from driving for four years and two months.
Gary Stedman
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Gary Stedman, 48, offered to take a schoolgirl to watch Everton play only to be met outside a club shop by paedophile hunters .
The pervert befriended someone who he thought was a 13-year-old girl called Mia on an internet chatroom in December.
The convicted flasher, who said he would like to kiss and cuddle ‘Mia’, asked if she would like to come back to his home in Stoke.
He had arranged to meet his victim outside the Everton Two store at Liverpool One ahead of the game, which the Blues lost 6-2.
But he was instead greeted by a decoy from predator hunting group Leave Our Kids Alone and arrested in Chavasse Park by police.
Stedman, of Nash Peake Street in Tunstall, Stoke-on-Trent, admitted attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child and attempting to meet a girl under 16 following grooming.
He was jailed for 21 months.
Steven Willoughby and Emma Matthewman
A pair of dealers who peddled drugs from Cheshire into Liverpool have been jailed after a drugs ‘hotline’ saw police bust their operation.
Steven Willoughby and Emma Matthewman revealed the sickening arsenal of weapons found among 72 wraps of heroin and crack cocaine stashed at Emma Matthewman’s home.
As well as the class A drugs officers recovered drugs paraphernalia, cash, a large kitchen knife, hammer and even a Taser from her address in Dickenson Street in Warrington .
Matthewman, 47, and Willoughby, 25, of Birch Green in Skelmersdale were both found guilty of possession with intent to supply heroin and crack cocaine.
Liverpool Crown Court heard how officers became suspicious when Willoughby’s phone would constantly be ringing and suspected him of being involved in drug dealing.
Police believe Willoughby was involved in ‘county lines’ drug activity and used his mobile phone – also known as a ‘graft’ or a ‘line’ – to extend his criminal drug dealing from Liverpool into Cheshire.
County lines is the term given to groups moving drugs from cities into more rural areas of the county.
On Wednesday Matthewman received a four and a half years sentence and Willoughby was sentenced to four years in prison.
Simone Mastrelli
(Image: Merseyside Police)
A man who left a Liverpool fan in a coma in an horrific attack outside Anfield stadium was jailed.
Simone Mastrelli pleaded guilty to attacking Sean Cox, 53, who was left with life changing brain injuries, before Liverpool played Roma last April.
At Preston Crown Court, Mastrelli, 30, from Rome, was jailed for three and a half years.
Mr Cox, of Dunboyne, County Meath, suffered severe head injuries when he was attacked by Mastrelli ahead of the Champions League semi-final tie.
Mastrelli, who was extradited last month after being arrested on a European Arrest Warrant in Italy, picked out Mr Cox because of the Liverpool scarf he was wearing.
He then went into the stadium to enjoy the match- his actions described by a judge as “particularly callous” given what he had just done.
Tony Ormesher
A menace banned from Liverpool city centre who threatened to have a Salvation Army worker killed has blown his latest chance at freedom.
Tony Ormesher, 53, was handed a 10-year ban for a crazed rampage that saw him punch a pregnant woman and spit at tour bus staff in 2016.
The convicted sex offender has a long record including indecent exposure, arson, assaults, thefts, threatening behaviour and criminal damage.
Staggeringly, however, he once worked as a porter at Eaton Road Police Station in West Derby and did not commit a single crime until he turned 45.
Ormesher breached his criminal behaviour order when he became aggressive with staff at the One Stop Shop in St John’s Market on December 27 last year.
He admitted breaching his order and Judge Cummings said there was nothing else he could do and jailed him for three months.
Mark Walker and Wade McAllister
(Image: North Wales Police)
Two drug dealers are behind bars after police discovered they had stashed almost 300 wraps of cocaine and heroin up their bottoms.
Mark Walker, 27, from Fifth Avenue in Fazakerley was found concealing £2,000 of drugs up his backside - 120 wraps of cocaine and 53 wraps of heroin - when he was stopped by police in Bangor, North Wales.
When officers asked him if he had any drugs on him, he told them exactly where to find them.
After being arrested and released under investigation on May 8 last year, he was spotted the next day with 18-year-old Wade McAllister reports North Wales Live.
(Image: North Wales Police)
McAllister from Carfield in Skelmersdale told police he had around 50 wrap of cocaine and 60 wraps of crack “between his cheeks”.
Walker denied any knowledge of the drugs McAllister had been concealing but tests found his DNA on the packages stuffed up the 18-year-old’s backside.
He admitted supplying heroin and cannabis and Wade McAllister pleaded guilty to supplying cocaine, heroin and cannabis.
Walker was jailed for three years and eight months and McAllister for two years and four months.
Gregory Davies
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
A crooked solicitor who stole £13,000 from his law firm then tried to blame his employers cried when jailed.
Gregory Davies, 30, betrayed the trust of his mentor Catherine Higgins, colleagues and clients at Catherine Higgins Law in Woolton.
The dad-of-one duplicated paperwork and created fake policy documents to request clients paid money into his own bank account.
His despicable fraud even saw him take £540 from a deceased woman’s estate, which he disguised as a payment for funeral costs.
When rumbled he started deleting emails, then made serious accusations against the firm - none of which were accepted or proven.
Davies stole £13,397 in total, but his victim spent considerably more investigating his crimes and sly attempts to cover his tracks.
Liverpool Crown Court heard Davies, of Kylemore Drive, Pensby, Wirral, swindled the cash between September 2015 and July 2016.
Davies cried as did supporters in the public gallery as he was jailed for 12 months.
Ashley Jacobs
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
A doorman caught with £55,000 of cocaine and cannabis said he started smoking weed to fight cancer.
Ashley Jacobs grew a cannabis farm and cut cocaine with white powder at his home in Lindby Road, Kirkby.
Police also found £2,000 in dirty cash when they raided the 31-year-old bouncer’s house on May 31, 2017.
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
But he told Liverpool Crown Court he only became involved with drugs because of his battle with the disease.
He admitted possession of cocaine with intent to supply, production of cannabis, abstracting electricity and possession of criminal property.
Jailing him for four years and eight months, he said the sentence had been reduced because of the long delay in bringing the case to court.
Stuart Marshall
(Image: MEN)
The founder of a Manchester City fansite was jailed after posting a sick tweet calling for the ‘stabbing’ of Liverpool fans as part of a ‘chilling’ campaign of stalking.
Stuart Marshall, 36, began flooding two men who contributed to the City Watch website with messages that became increasingly threatening and sinister.
Marshall, who founded the City Watch site from scratch, even set up a fake Twitter profile in the name one of his victims, which he used to post a message calling for the stabbing of Liverpool fans.
Marshall also used the fake account to make a sick reference to the Hillsborough disaster under a victim’s name.
(Image: MEN)
The victim was then “inundated” with messages from furious Liverpool fans in response, Manchester Crown Court was told.
Mocked-up porn images involving the men’s girlfriends were sent to them and they had their social media accounts hacked as part of the campaigns of stalking.
Marshall, of Leslie Avenue, Bury, pleaded guilty at earlier hearings to two counts of stalking, one charge of using unauthorised access to computer material to facilitate the commission of an offence, relating to the hacking and three charges of possessing indecent images of children.
The judge rejected pleas to suspend his sentence and Marshall put his his head in his hands in the dock as he was told he would be sent straight to prison and would serve two years and four months.
Barry Smith
(Image: staffspolice)
A taxi driver was caught carrying more than 40kg of heroin, worth a staggering £4m, when police stopped him on the motorway.
Barry Smith was pulled over by police on the M6, in September 2018, after they had tracking his Skoda Octavia on the M6 northbound, between junctions 13 and 14 at Stafford.
(Image: staffspolice)
The 44-year-old’s vehicle was searched, and in the boot offices found the massive haul of heroin, all packed up in Sports Direct carrier bags.
Smith, of Keston Walk in Halewood, admitted possession of heroin with intent to supply.
He was jailed for four years and eight months at Stafford Crown Court.
Rachel Tinsley
(Image: cheshire police)
A mother was locked up for stabbing her boyfriend because she found out that he was having an affair with her best friend.
Rachel Tinsley was jailed for 20 months for plunging a kitchen knife into Mark Donnelly’s chest and puncturing his lung during a bust-up on October 30.
But incredibly, Chester Crown Court heard how the couple are keen to “rekindle” their stormy relationship once she is released from prison.
The 33-year-old got embroiled in a furious row at their flat in Orford, Warrington, following her discovery that her partner had got intimate with her closest pal.
In an argument it was heard how Mr Donnelly became aggressive, grabbing his girlfriend’s arms, before she grabbed an eight-inch kitchen knife and stabbed him in the chest.
Tinsley then quickly pulled the weapon out and hit the victim on the shoulder with it.
Mr Donnelly escaped and sought refuge in a nearby phone box on Poplars Avenue as he tried to ring the emergency services.
When police turned up, officers found him drifting in and out of consciousness having suffered “significant” blood loss.
Tinsley, who admitted unlawful wounding, is also currently serving a 22-week imprisonment for criminal damage and a public order offence.
Anthony Cheeney
Cheeney, 29, was behind the botched bid to drop off the items above HMP Liverpool in Hornby Road.
A court heard Cheeney of Peter Road, Walton, failed to get the drone over the prison wall and it was seen crashing near to the category B prison at around 9pm on Thursday, August 31, 2017.
After the drone was recovered police found Class A and B drugs, mobile phones and sim cards attached to the device.
After an investigation Cheeney was arrested and charged with conveying prohibited articles into prison.
Cheeney was sentenced to five years in prison.
Eugene Furlong
A bullying thug who beat his girlfriend won’t serve a single extra day in jail for it because he was already on license from prison for a previous crime.
Eugene Furlong attacked his victim, with whom he had been in a short relationship, pulling out her hair, using a training shoe to strike her, and even whipping her using a rolled up coat.
The 37-year-old threw his victim across the room at the house in Thatto Heath, in St Helens.
His girlfriend phoned the police and Furlong was arrested and interviewed under caution.
He accepted being present, but denied assault. But on January 21, he changed his plea to guilty to a single count of assault.
It was also heard how Furlong had committed the offence while out of jail on licence for a previous crime.
In April, 2016, he was convicted of causing grievous bodily harm and was handed a 57 month jail sentence.
He was released from prison in April 2018.
Furlong, of Casino Road in Huyton was jailed him for 30 months but a judge bemoaned the fact the punishment would “not add a day to his current sentence.”
A five year restraining order was also imposed.
Liverpool man jailed in Amsterdam
(Image: Google)
A Liverpool man was jailed in Amsterdam after police raided an apartment and found a cache of firearms, ammunition and drugs
Police raided a luxury apartment on de Jan van Zutphenstraat in the West Amsterdam area in October.
They seized 15 semi-automatic handguns, 1,500 bullets and drugs.
A 49-year-old man from Liverpool was arrested at the scene, and held in custody.
Local media reported that the Liverpool man told police the guns did not belong to him.
He appeared in court in Amsterdam in February and was sentenced to three years and six months in prison.
The Dutch police have not named the man.
James Howard
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
James Howard, 53, attacked a man in McDonald’s, in a phone box and at his own home in a row over a debt - even though his lawyer said he had mobility problems.
Howard, of Victoria Road, Tuebrook, entered Neil Davies' home as he slept and broke his left arm by repeatedly hitting him with a table leg.
The victim went to hospital and had a plaster cast fitted, yet Howard attacked him twice more after seeing him in the street and a McDonald’s, even striking the injured arm.
When he appeared in court Howard was wheeled in and hobbled into the dock, before claiming he had “significant mobility problems”.
However prosecutors said there was no suggestion he had been in a wheelchair when he pursued Mr Davies.
The judge jailed Howard for two years and handed him a five-year restraining order.
Alan Williams
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
A young girl raped in her home climbed out of a bathroom window and down a drainpipe to escape her vile attacker.
Alan Williams, 44, was temporarily staying at the vulnerable 13-year-old victim’s mum’s house, in Merseyside, last year.
The child pretended to be asleep when he started molesting her on a sofa but Williams raped her and she fled.
Williams, of Cross Street, Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, claimed he didn’t rape or have sex with the traumatised girl, despite DNA evidence.
He denied rape and three counts of sexual assault, but didn’t give evidence or offer any explanation during a two-day trial.
A jury unanimously found him guilty on all counts today after just over an hour of deliberation.
Judge Robert Trevor-Jones jailed Williams for 11 years and told him to sign on the Sex Offenders Register for life.
Gary Schofield
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
A man claimed he grew a £98,000 cannabis farm because he lost his job and couldn’t afford his mortgage.
Police discovered 90 cannabis plants when they raided Gary Schofield’s house in Crosby Road South, Waterloo.
Stuart Nolan, defending, said: “He made a stupid decision to seek the course to criminality when the desperation got to the point he thought he was going to lose the property.
“The irony being he probably will lose the property, if not now, at some stage in the future because of the circumstances he now finds himself in.”
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
He said his client was not the “controlling mind” of the scheme, but was just a “gardener”.
Judge Rachel Smith said it was a “substantial cannabis growing operation” and the Class B drug was “ready for onward supply”.
Jailing Schofield for three years, Judge Smith said his personal mitigation did not reduce his sentence and he had to go to prison.
Michael Easton
(Image: Royal Mail)
A cocaine addict postman stole mail including a woman’s cancer results and dumped the letters in his bath.
Michael Easton, who was desperately looking for cash to steal, was jailed for 10 months after a Royal Mail sting caught him out.
Mail swiped by the 47-year-old included a letter with a woman’s cancer results, correspondence from her employer and a condolence card to another woman whose sister had died.
Easton, of New Ferry Road in New Ferry, Wirral, was caught out after Royal Mail investigators put six test items into post boxes from which he collected mail.
Judge Rachel Smith said: “There must be a clear deterrent message that members of staff of the Post Office who steal from within the postal system will receive immediate sentences.”
Callum Rose
A teenage drug dealer who mowed down two innocent university students on Slater Street was fleeing a drug-related argument with two older men when the horror crash happened.
Dramatic footage of the incident, which happened after Callum Rose raced from Bold Street into Slater Street, was shown to a hushed courtroom.
Rose, 19, who had been smoking cannabis, ploughed into two young men who were innocently crossing the road with two friends in the early hours of Christmas Eve.
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Sentencing Rose to four and a half years in prison, Judge Andrew Menary, QC, said: “You drove the car directly into collision with these men - you literally mowed them down.
“I don’t believe you targeted these young men but your actions in driving into them and continuing over Mr Jones' body and then continuing your journey shows breathtaking callousness.
“You did not stop after the incident or show any concern for the people you had run over.”
Joseph Moran and James Donnelley
Two men were jailed after pleading guilty to multiple burglaries across Merseyside last year.
Joseph Moran and James Donnelley pleaded guilty to burgling a house on Windsor Road in Formby on September, 7 2018 and handling stolen goods in relation to property stolen during a burglary at Barnfield Drive in West Derby, on September 22, 2017.
Moran, 24, of Mildmay Road, Norris Green, and Donnelley, 20, of no fixed address, were both sentenced to three years and one month in prison.
Dillon Neil
(Image: cheshirepolice)
A “paranoid” teenager stabbed a man who confronted him about an alleged sex offence leaving him with a punctured lung and bleeding from his back.
Dillon Neil, 20, of The Uplands, Runcorn, was aged 18 when he decided to “fight fire with fire” after Daniel Twigg turned up at his flat in the early hours of June 27, 2017, to remonstrate after Mr Twigg had been awoken by a phone call from a girl claiming Neil had sexually assaulted her.
After words were exchanged between the two men, Neil armed himself with a knife, which he plunged into Mr Twigg’s back, piercing his lung.
It only dawned on Mr Twigg what had happened when he became short of breath.
His Honour Judge Steven Everett told Neil he was lucky not to be serving a 25-year life sentence for murder, and that he could have kept his door shut but instead had chosen to “meet fire with fire”.
He was sentenced to three years and four months in prison.
John Doyle
A truck dealer who stole £337,000 in VAT while still claiming unemployment benefits was jailed.
John Doyle, 47, spent lavishly on trips to expensive hotels and restaurants, as well as splashing out on shopping sprees.
Doyle, of Blenheim Street in Vauxhall, collected hundreds of pounds in unemployment benefits - while his business account had more than £3.2m paid into it over a 14-month period.
Despite the huge sums being paid into his business account between February 2016 and May 2017, Doyle paid no VAT on the trucks and plant machinery he traded.
He was sentenced to three years and two months in jail and disqualified from being a company director for 10 years.
Jonathan Blair
A drug dealer was caught with three shotguns and £12,000 in cash as well as heroin and crack worth £29,000.
Jonathan Blair, of Oakdene Road, Anfield, was part of a drug trafficking operation peddling Class A drugs from Liverpool to Wales.
The guns and drugs were recovered when armed officers swooped on a house in south Wales following a tip-off.
The judge told Blair he was obviously intelligent – he left school with 12 GCSEs – and it was “a pity you did not fulfil that academic potential”.
He received a sentence of eight years and four months.
Sam Walker
Notorious crook Sam Walker was sentenced over a mobile phone found in his cell at HMP Liverpool, along with two high speed police chases.
Judge David Aubrey, QC, said “career criminal” Walker was “extremely streetwise” and knew he shouldn’t have a phone in jail.
He also said Walker drove at “grossly excessive speeds” on August 4 last year, showing “total and utter disregard” for other road users.
The judge jailed Walker for 33 months and banned him from the road for 52 months.
William Vaill and Deborah Andrews
Cold-hearted killers who brutally murdered a vulnerable friend using a hammer, knife, scissors and a screwdriver will spend at least 28 years in jail.
Evil William Vaill and Deborah Andrews were handed life sentences for killing Skelmersdale dad Eamonn Brady in a “brutal and sustained” attack before setting his body on fire.
The horrific attack saw Mr Brady hit in the head with a hammer at least 17 times and repeatedly stabbed and slashed in the neck and body in the early hours of July 21 2018.
Vaill, 37, and Andrews, 44, then wrapped his body in bedding and set it on fire before stealing a PlayStation 4, sound bar, DVD player and bank card belonging to Mr Brady.
After the callous killing, which Judge Mark Brown said had no clear motive, the pair went to Beacon Country Park, where they burned clothing and hid the weapons, then had sex.
John Peverall
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
A fugitive cannabis addict is believed to have hid in Amsterdam during three years on the run before his capture in Spain.
John Peverall was one of Merseyside’s most wanted men due to his links with a gang behind cocaine, heroin and cannabis plots.
The now 33-year-old fled the UK after police raided his parents' home, where he lived in Chelwood Avenue, Childwall, in November 2015.
He wasn’t apprehended until August last year, when he was intercepted at Madrid airport and extradited on a European Arrest Warrant.
He was locked up for three years at Liverpool Crown Court.
Justin Jervis
District Judge Andrew Shaw was “visibly disturbed” when he examined photos of a dog neglected by callous Justin Jervis, 42, at Liverpool Magistrates' Court.
Jervis, of Gorst Street, Anfield, allowed his Shar-pei, called Bubbles, to become emaciated, infected with maggots and die in agony after he refused to take her for free veterinary treatment.
Judge Shaw condemned the images of Bubbles as some of “the worst he had ever seen.”
Bubbles was put to sleep by vets at the PDSA in Kirkdale on September 3, 2018 - after she was presented in a horrifying skeletal state.
The golden Shar-pei was also infected with mature maggots which had nested in her ear canal and began migrating throughout her head, as well as having a back leg which was hugely swollen from cancerous growths.
Jervis admitted three charges of causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal and was jailed for 16 weeks.
The RSPCA inspector who handled the case described it as among the worst she had seen in her 16 year career - and burst into tears when the sentence was read out.
Cameron Ashton
Hero gym-staff pinned down crazed knifeman Cameron Ashton and bound his legs with duct tape after a horrific stabbing at a leisure centre.
Ashton, of no fixed address, turned up at David Lloyd Leisure Centre in Speke Road, Speke, armed with a 12 inch blade and launched a ferocious attack on victim Jonathan Benn, on August 15 last year.
Horrified children on their way to a nearby changing room saw Mr Benn pouring with blood.
Brave staff chased Ashton, and after rugby tackling him to the ground managed to detain him despite his desperate 10-minute struggle to escape during which his legs had to be tied with duct tape.
The reason for the attack remains a mystery, as Ashton has not given an explanation and Mr Benn failed to turn up for Ashton’s trial, which was due to begin last week.
CCTV of the horrific attack was played in court and showed Ashton stabbing down at Mr Benn’s head and body before walking off.
The victim suffered a 10cm laceration to his hand which damaged nerve endings and needed surgery.
He also suffered a two inch laceration to his neck which was an inch deep.
Recorder Kate Bex, QC, jailed him for 38 months for wounding.
Michael Dainty
(Image: merpol)
Convicted paedophile Michael Dainty was jailed after a “relapse” where he downloaded horrifying images of children being abused.
The 56-year-old received a visit from police to his home in Rockwell Road, West Derby, who wanted to check his phone and computer as part of his previous offending.
As soon as they arrived he blurted out: “I’m trying not to, there may be a naked child [photo].”
Paul Blasbery, prosecuting, said analysis of Dainty’s internet use revealed he had one image in Category A, featuring children aged 13-16, one image in Category B, and 267 in Category C, which showed children aged five to eight-years-old.
Dainty was interviewed by police and later admitted three offences of making indecent images of children, Liverpool Crown Court heard.
He told police that he went online at night, when feeling “lonely and down.”
Judge Davis imposed a fresh Sexual Harm Prevention Order which bars Dainty with having any device capable of accessing the internet, stops him deleting his internet history or using any software concealing web deletions.
Jailing Dainty for eight months, Judge Davis added: “You have been given an opportunity and you have failed to take it.”
Liam Morris
(Image: merpol)
Jealous Liam Morris, now 28, stabbed his ex’s new partner in front of a child after finding them in bed together - before fleeing to Tenerife.
Liam Morris told Robert McCarthy he was “going to kill” him after arming himself with two large cooking knives, on September 14, 2015.
Morris, then 24, was seen “savagely” kicking in the front door, and then dashed to the bedroom.
A “stalemate” or “tug-of-war” developed, prosecutor Edmund Haygarth said, before Morris managed to slightly force himself in, and stabbed Mr McCarthy in his leg, twice, and to his bicep as Mr McCarthy tried to protect his chest.
The violence happened in front of a two year old child.
Morris fled and went on the run in Tenerife for three years.
He was eventually brought back to the UK on a European Arrest Warrant, and charged with wounding, to which he entered a plea of guilty.
He was jailed for two years.
Warren Graham
(Image: merpol)
Violent bully Warren Graham broke into his former partner’s house before attacking her and threatening to kill her.
Graham, of Langtree Street, St Helens, had split with Alleisha Atherton after a brief relationship during which the 21-year-old punched her.
On November 30 last year she was at home, tidying up, when she heard a bang at her front door and her ex shouting: “I know you are in there!”
Miss Atherton, who had told him that she was leaving the Newton-le-Willows area, became scared but managed to get in touch with a neighbour.
Graham banged on kitchen and bathroom windows before reaching a bedroom window which had been left open, although by now she had escaped.
He managed to get inside and stole £40 along with a bottle of vodka, then two days later returned and used a plank of wood to smash his way in.
He came face-to-face with his ex, grabbed her neck and vowed to kill her, and himself, then put his hand over her mouth, until an officer rescued her.
Graham, who admitted burglary, common assault and criminal damage, was jailed for three years.
Jamie Talbot
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
This is the glum face of a fugitive drug dealer caught on Christmas Day - before he could even tuck into his festive dinner.
Jamie Talbot spent more than two and a half years on the run while wanted by police over a £26,000 cocaine conspiracy.
Police discovered multiple bags of the Class A drug, cutting agents and a hydraulic press in a raid on a drugs factory in Seaforth.
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Talbot and his business partner Carl Morgan used the rented flat in Crosby Road South to mix drugs and package them for sale.
Officers found 263g of cocaine in total and 178g of the anaesthetic Benzocaine, commonly used an an adulterant to increase profits.
Fingerprints led detectives to the then homes of Morgan, 32, of Lisburn Lane, Old Swan, and Talbot, 32, of Altcar Road, Formby.
Edmund Haygarth, prosecuting, said Morgan was arrested in May 2016, but Talbot was not at home when officers called that July.
Morgan was jailed for four and a half years after a trial in May 2017, but Talbot remained at large and police issued a wanted appeal.
He was finally captured when stopped by officers in Wood Street, in Liverpool city centre, at around 11.51am on December 25 last year.
Talbot, now of Knight Street in Liverpool city centre, was arrested and later admitted conspiracy to supply cocaine.
Jailing him for three years and two months, the judge said he could not give him maximum credit for his guilty plea due to having been on the run.
“Young monster” jailed
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
This is the bloodstained blade a schoolboy left embedded in another child’s arm after stabbing him so hard his knife snapped in half.
The yob - aged just 14 at the time - launched the unprovoked attack at a house party when “bladdered” drunk and high on cannabis.
His victim, 14, is now scarred for life and suffering from nerve damage, which means he cannot write properly and may never do again.
Just weeks after the horrific ordeal, the lout tried to rob the same teen - repeatedly punching his injured arm and demanding his mobile phone.
A top judge said the remorseless boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was a “coward”, appearing “to all the world as a young monster”.
He also said that if he was an adult he would have been jailed for around 12 years, before sentencing him to five and a half years' detention.
At the time of the attack the boy was serving a nine-month referral order at the time for shoplifting, assaulting store staff and criminal damage.
The skull mask gang
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
The shocking three-week crime spree saw nine bars and restaurants hit – and their victims included one man who was pistol whipped in the face and another who was told his hand would be cut off in front of his nine-year-old son.
Ring-leader Frankie Wood, 23, led up to three accomplices terrorising staff after look-out and getaway driver Hayley Digney, 34, had cased the premises beforehand.
(Image: Merseyside Police)
At least two offenders remain unidentified, but at Liverpool Crown Court today Wood was jailed for 19 years with an extra five on licence while fellow robber Thomas Lacken, 39, was locked up for 10.
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All three had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit robbery after the raids in Aigburth, Old Swan, West Derby, Allerton and Crosby.
Mum-of-one Digney sobbed in the dock as she was put behind bars for 14 and a half years.
(Image: Merseyside Police)
Relatives of Digney and Wood screamed “rat” at Judge Neil Flewitt, QC, from the public gallery and were ejected from court by police officers.
Andrew Ford, prosecuting, told the court: “This was a burst of terrifying robberies of extreme gravity, in a major city, over a three week period, which shocked the community.”
Michael Woolvine
(Image: merpol)
Michael Woolvine was sent to jail for 15 years for a horrific assault on his former partner in Moreton, Wirral.
The 36-year-old broke into Samantha Heustice’s home on Wastdale Drive and used a J2O bottle to smash over the 28-year-old’s head and then slashed at her face.
The thug put his hands round the 28-year-old’s throat to throttle her and even knocked over the child who watched the colour of her mum’s face change from red to grey.
Woolvine was labelled a dangerous criminal by Judge Stuart Driver QC and handed a ten year tariff plus a five years extension for subjecting Miss Heustice and her daughter to such a brutal ordeal.
Sean McDevitt
(Image: Lancashire Police handout)
Crooked salesman Sean McDevitt stole £69,000 from his employer after setting up secret Paypal accounts to funnel money to himself.
Sean McDevitt, 34, carried out around 200 dodgy transactions while working at West Lancashire firm Yellow Products Design to fund drink and drug habits and pay for restaurant visits and hotel stays.
McDevitt, of Tithebarn Road in Southport, was jailed for 26 months after admitting carrying out the transactions over a two-year period between 2015-17.
Sean Furlong
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Road rage driver Sean Furlong knocked a cyclist off his bike sending him flying over his car bonnet then “left him for dead”.
The 49, saw red when Kenneth Cawsey, 50, challenged him over his dangerous driving and called him a “fing wer”.
He then sped away leaving the grandad, who suffered a broken shoulder and a deep gash to his right knee, in “excruciating pain”.
At Liverpool Crown Court Furlong was jailed for 14 months and banned him from the road for two years and seven months, as his partner sobbed in the public gallery.
Stephen Prendergast
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Stephen Prendergast - who once knocked his own sister’s teeth out - was jailed on his birthday for two new crimes.
He targeted a car parked outside one of the city’s top restaurants, and - while out on bail - burgled a distraught family’s home.
Prendergast struck outside Holdi Bar in Woolton Village, where Paul Homa was carrying out work, on Christmas Eve last year.
Mr Homa looked out of the Indian restaurant in Woolton Street and spotted a man in the front seat of his car, at around 9.15pm.
He dragged the thief out of his vehicle and knocked on the restaurant window for help, yet Prendergast managed to worm free.
The bungling crook escaped but later returned because he realised he’d left his glasses and was caught and arrested.
He was found to be carrying a Samsung music player and electric power bank he had taken from the car.
Prendergast confessed and said he was sorry, but after he was charged with theft and released on bail, skipped magistrates' court.
He then raided a family’s house in Speke Road, Woolton on January 23, but was captured on CCTV cameras stealing a laptop.
Prendergast was jailed for three years and four months.
Stephen Martin and James Dean
Two Birkenhead men were jailed after they were caught hiding out in a farm building after they burgled a country pub near the M6.
Stephen Martin and James Dean broke into the Horseshoe Inn, near Warrington during the early hours of January 28.
But as they ran off as they heard police arriving.
Officers then launched an area search with the help of dog patrols and the police helicopter.
The two men were found hiding in a farm outbuilding on Dam Lane a short time later and were arrested.
They were sentenced at Liverpool Crown Court on Tuesday 26 February after pleading guilty to burglary.
Stephen Martin, 37, of Tapestry Gardens, Birkenhead was sentenced to four years in prison and James Dean, 38, of Portland Street, Birkenhead was sentenced to three years in prison.
Gerard Kendrick
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Gerard Kendrick raped and molested six children over two decades - beginning when he himself was aged just 10-years-old.
The twisted pervert, 32, forced little boys and girls to wear nappies while carrying out sickening attacks on traumatised victims.
But his disturbing crimes only came to light last year, after police seized indecent images from a known sex offender in Blackburn.
Using GPS technology, officers discovered some of the photographs were created at Kendrick’s Barmouth Way, Vauxhall home.
They later found the stash included pictures Kendrick took of him raping a little boy, who he made wear a nappy, in 2017 and 2018.
When he was arrested over the find last year, five more victims - now adults - came forward to report he had also ruined their lives.
Kendrick was jailed for 18 years, with an extended six years on licence, for the “disgraceful catalogue of sexual offending”.
Judge Robert Warnock said: “You have stolenthe innocence and enjoyment of their childhood and scarred and impaired their adult life.”
Alexander Billinge
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Violent thug Billinge set upon a 75-year-old man and pinned him to the ground to steal his Rolex watch.
The 26-year-old thug dragged his victim to the floor in Fountain Court, in Blundellsands, before he and his accomplice ripped off the expensive piece of jewellery.
Billinge, of Lyneham, Whiston, appeared at Liverpool Crown Court and admitted robbery and was jailed for seven years.
Police are still seeking his accomplice.
Jamie Porter
(Image: gmp)
This was the moment a gun-toting robber stole £10,000 from a pensioner’s home - but was captured on their home CCTV.
Jamie Porter, from Kensington, knocked on the door of a property in Wigan, at 8.30am on Saturday, November 25, last year, armed with a fake firearm.
The 39-year-old lied to the occupant that he was looking for his wife, but then pushed past the 73-year-old, revealing the weapon which he had hidden underneath a newspaper.
Porter forced the man to hand over cash and jewellery with a combined value of £10,000.
(Image: gmp)
He also stole a mobile phone that contained a number of sentimental pictures.
But because he had left a perfect image of himself behind , and vital forensic evidence, police managed to catch up with him the next day.
On his arrest he was found to be in possession of £4,150 in cash.
Porter, of Hannan Road, pleaded guilty to robbery and possession of an imitation firearm and was jailed for seven-and-a-half years at Bolton Crown Court.
Keith Moore
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Thug Keith Moore from Huyton, dragged a woman out of a taxi by her hair outside a busy train station.
The Knowsley man, along with accomplice Michael Bedford, was seen standing in the middle of the road outside the town’s train station, brandishing a broken road tile.
The 30-year-old yob then shouted: “Don’t move that taxi”, and threatened to smash the cab’s windscreen.
Their two victims jumped into the taxi, and shouted “Go!” at the driver, however the violent pair pulled open the vehicle’s doors and attacked the victims, dragging the woman from the taxi by her hair.
One of the attackers also pulled a knife and threatened the woman.
Moore was jailed for 18 months, while Bedford, 28, got two years and two months in jail.
Dale Mills
Dale Mills was jailed for stealing £120,000 from an autism charity in a shocking four-year campaign of fraud.
The 36-year-old from Frobisher Road in Leasowe, stole tens of thousands from Wirral-based charity Autism Together during his time working on the charity’s finance team.
He was sentenced to 32 months behind bars in a hearing at Liverpool Crown Court.
The charity, which was formerly called The Wirral Society for Autistic Children, said Dale ‘took advantage of his position of trust.’
Steven Gardner
(Image: Merseyside Police)
A quad biker was jailed after “racing through a housing estate” and riding the wrong way around a roundabout while high on drugs.
Steven Gardner was spotted by officers driving a quad bike dangerously in the Hillside and Page Moss areas “which involved travelling the wrong way on a roundabout whilst racing through a residential housing estate”.
Gardner, 29, was seen to abandon the bike in the street where he lived - Parbrook Road.
He was detained by officers after being spotted at around 6pm on Monday, September 10 last year.
He was sentenced to eight months imprisonment at Liverpool Crown Court for dangerous driving, drug driving, driving a motor vehicle whilst disqualified and using a motor vehicle without insurance.
Leighton Holt
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
The killer of Danny Fox was jailed for minding a shotgun and carrying out two terrifying cocaine-fuelled robberies.
Leighton Holt, 22, admitted slashing and killing former doorman Danny, 29, in St Helens town centre, but while he accepted inflicting the fatal wound, argued he acted in self-defence.
The grinning thug walked free from court in 2017 after not one but two juries failed to reach a verdict, following two harrowing murder trials.
But he is now behind bars for stashing a sawn-off shotgun at his mum’s home, a terrifying knifepoint robbery and a supermarket raid when he sprayed bleach in a security guard’s face.
He was jailed for eight and a half years, with an extended four years and eight months on licence.
When the judge handed him his sentence Holt gave him the middle finger.
James Foat and Kyle Melia
James Foat and Kyle Melia were jailed after a deadly haul of weapons was found by chance by police.
Liverpool Crown Court heard officers went to a house in Chudleigh Road, Old Swan looking for a woman wanted on recall to prison.
But when they knocked on the front door on August 15 last year, a man tried to escape out of a back window, only to be confronted by a waiting officer.
Jonathan Myles - “visibly agitated and sweating profusely” - confessed there was a gun and led police to a small box room, filled with furniture and junk.
Under a piece of clothing lay the astonishing haul, including a sawn-off shotgun, a semi-automatic pistol and an Ingram MAC-10 sub-machine gun.
The landlord of the property told police it had been rented since July to Foat, 24, of Jerningham Road, Norris Green, whose DNA was found on the shotgun and pistol.
The pistol also bore the DNA of Kyle Melia, 24, of Killington Way, Kirkdale,
Foat was jailed for seven and a half years and Melia for five years.
Myles, alleged to have been tasked by Foat to look after the weapons while in the house, was cleared of any wrongdoing after a trial.
Lee Almond and David Kelly’s gang
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Nine men and two women were jailed for a total of more than 76 years for flooding three separate countries with large quantities of Class A and B drugs.
During the course of the investigation, more than 34 kilos of drugs were recovered, worth an estimated street value of £410,000, which was being peddled across England, Scotland and South Wales.
(Image: mpol)
Lee Almond, 38, of Heathfield Road, Litherland, and 24-year-old David Kelly of Byron Street, Bootle, were the heads of the gang who both were jailed for nine years and nine months at Liverpool Crown Court after admitting conspiracy to supply Class A and B drugs.
The two men facilitated the distribution of cocaine, amphetamines and cannabis to Aberdeen in Scotland and Cardiff in South Wales through trusted couriers, who formed part of the crime group.
(Image: mpol)
The gang used the cover of lawfully registered and insured vehicles to transport controlled drugs and also used coaches in the UK to mask their intentions.
Almond and Kelly were both jailed for nine years and nine months.
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Carl Larkin, 54, of Marsh Lane, Bootle was sentenced to five years and two months in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to supply Class A and B drugs.
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Charlotte McMullen, 27, of Hawthorne Road, Bootle, was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to supply Class B drugs and being found guilty of conspiracy to supply Class A drugs.
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Jonathan Ford, 24, of The Scythes, Netherton, was sentenced to four years six months in prison after being found guilty of conspiracy to supply Class B drugs.
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Andrew Williams, 48, of Masefield Road, Crosby, was sentenced to 8 years in prison after being found guilty of conspiracy to supply Class A and B drugs.
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Shane Hodgson, 39, of Westminster Avenue, Netherton was sentenced to six years and six months in prison after being found guilty of conspiracy to supply Class A and B drugs.
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Jade Hazlett, 27, of Norton Street, Bootle, was sentenced to five years in prison after being found guilty of conspiracy to supply Class A and B drugs
(Image: mpol)
Detective Chief Inspector Steve Reardon, of Merseyside Police, said: “We are pleased that the courts have dealt with this organised crime group in such a robust way, which reflects the seriousness and scale of their criminal activity, which took place over a sustained length of time and across large geographic areas.
“Lee Almond and David Kelly led an organised criminal group who spread the misery of drug supply across three countries, with no regard for the devastating impact their actions caused within those communities.”
Steven Barton
(Image: Merseyside Police)
A grandad-of-three who led police on an 80mph car chase which nearly wiped out a family declared “I’m getting too old for this.”
Steven Barton, 47, drove at high speed down the wrong side of the road, through red lights, and was forced to slam on to avoid hitting the family as they prepared to cross Speke Road, Speke.
Barton, of Elloway Road in Speke, was jailed for two years and seven months after admitting five counts of theft, five counts of fraud, two counts of going equipped for theft, one of handling stolen goods, one of dangerous driving and one of driving while disqualified.
John Smith
A junior football coach sent pictures of his penis to boys on Snapchat after grooming them at a junior football team.
John Smith, 22, abused his position when training young players for Venny Junior Football Club in Conleach Road, Speke.
Smith was found guilty of three counts of engaging in sexual communication with a child, after a trial at Liverpool Crown Court.
Judge Anil Murray, who said Smith “groomed” his victims, jailed him for 18 months and made a five-year restraining order.
Bando Ysihara
(Image: cheshirepolice)
A teenager who raped a woman who was alone in her tent at the Creamfields dance music festival was jailed for six-and-a-half years.
Bando Ysihara, 19, of Peckham Grove, London, entered the victim’s tent and raped her at around 11pm on Sunday, August 26.
Following Ysihara’s sentencing, Julie Harrison, of Mersey-Cheshire Crown Prosecution Service, said: “This young woman had gone to a music festival to enjoy herself with her friends.
“Instead she was left traumatised by Ysihara who took advantage of the fact that she was alone and raped her.
“He refused to admit what he had done despite strong evidence, so his victim then had to relive the dreadful events of that night in a trial.
“The police and Crown Prosecution Service built a strong case and the jury took less than an hour to find him guilty.
“This man caused the victim and her family unbelievable distress and we hope that the successful conclusion of this case is of some comfort to them.”
Owen Cousins
(Image: Merseyside Police)
Owen Cousins, 17, was jailed for 11 years for the manslaughter of Danny Gee-Jamieson.
The teenager stabbed 16-year-old Danny in the thigh during a pre-arranged ‘straightener’ in Nook Park, Gateacre.
Cousins, of Redwood Road, Gateacre, admitted having a knife, but denied murder and manslaughter.
The teen had said he was acting in self-defence and claimed Danny had a knife on Tuesday, July 3 last year.
He was cleared of murder but found guilty of manslaughter.
Judge David Aubrey, QC, said Danny was not carrying a knife during the fight.
Nicholas Adams
(Image: cheshirepolice)
A property investor “saw red” and launched a ferocious attack on a man who “sarcastically mimicked” him in a parking row that ended in violence and left the victim’s skull visible through a five-inch gash.
Nicholas Samuel Adams, 47, of Bridgewater Grange, Preston Brook, Runcorn, flew into a rage as an ongoing parking dispute about who should park where boiled over into a vicious assault.
Charlie Farragher, Joseph Farrell and John Hodgin
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This is the moment three burglars headed the wrong way down the M53 in a stolen car as police pursued them.
Charlie Farragher, 19 years, of Vittoria Street, Birkenhead was jailed for three years, nine months for burglary, aggravated unauthorised taking of a motor vehicle and breach of a suspended sentence.
He was also sentenced for a burglary on 18 August 2018 in which a vehicle was stolen, and a making off without payment offence. Farragher was disqualified from driving for two years, 11 months.
Joseph Farrell, 18 years, of Cathcart Street, Birkenhead was jailed for one year, nine months for burglary and aggravated unauthorised taking of a motor vehicle. He was disqualified from driving for two years, one month.
John Hodgin, 19 years, Tapestry Gardens, Birkenhead was jailed for two years, seven months for burglary and aggravated unauthorised taking of a motor vehicle. He was disqualified from driving for two years, nine months.
Mark Gibbons
(Image: Lancashire Police)
An obsessed stalker repeatedly ran over his wife before telling shocked witnesses that he wanted her to die.
Mark Gibbons' campaign of harassment and abuse reached its peak when he tried to kill estranged wife, Dr Julia Woolgar, just five days after being banned by a court order him from contacting her.
He was jailed for 12 years for the attempted murder, an assault on Mr Byrne and breaching the restraining order.
He was also given an extra three years on license and banned from driving for 18 years.
Paul Wilkinson
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
An out-of-work doctor jailed for using an old hospital security pass to repeatedly steal drugs could be struck off.
Dr Paul Wilkinson worked in the anaesthetic department at Aintree Hospital in Lower Lane for almost two years.
But when his contract was not renewed due to “poor performance”, the then 30-year-old kept hold of his ID card.
He donned medical scrubs and used the pass on 75 occasions to try to steal codeine to feed his painkiller addiction.
In 2017 Liverpool Crown Court heard he wandered freely through wards and operating theatres over an eight-month period.
Wilkinson, now of Breakmoor Avenue in Silsden, West Yorkshire, admitted burglary, burglary with intent and theft.
He was jailed for eight months.
John Hardman
(Image: Merseyside Police)
John Hardman, 44, was jailed for 20 weeks.
Hardman was caught on CCTV and later admitted starting a fire in the skip next to the apartments on Claughton Street St Helens, at about 2.35am on August 4 last year.
Police said it was just luck that nobody was hurt as a result of the fire.
Alan Nolan
(Image: merpol)
A violent thug whose girlfriend died after swallowing his cocaine stash when he was stopped by police went on to beat up his next partner - while she was pregnant.
Alan Nolan walked free after the death of popular beautician Georgia Cassidy, 19, who became fatally ill after digesting his four wraps, which tore open in her stomach. He was charged with drug offences, but no charges specifically relating to her death.
But 19 days later, the 23-year-old bully unleashed his temper on Bethany Wainwright after she refused to pick him up from the city centre, when he woke her up with a 1am phone call.
A judge handed the 23-year-old 20 months in jail, but he slammed prosecutors for charging the Kirkby man with a less serious criminal offence which prevented him from being locked up for much longer.
Martin Willcocks
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
A paedophile bus driver who sexually abused a little girl sobbed in court today when finally jailed thanks to her bravery.
Martin Willcocks subjected his victim to a sickening campaign of abuse from the age of six yet convinced the vulnerable child it was completely normal.
The 50-year-old, of Westhead Avenue, Kirkby, molested the young girl, and sexually abused her.
He covered his face with his hand and sobbed when jailed for 16 years, with an extended two years on licence, as an Offender of Particular Concern.
Charles Dickenson
An 89-year-old former vicar who sexually assaulted a 12-year-old boy in the 1970s was sent to jail, as a judge told him: “You did terrible things.”
Charles Dickenson, who has dementia and now walks very slowly with a frame, had his crimes covered up by the Church of England twice and was promoted to higher position in another parish.
Dickenson was jailed for 27 months, and was ordered to sign the Sex Offender’s Register for life.
Mohammed Khalin Hussain and Ibras Khan
Two men were jailed for over 16 for their part in a massive country-wide drug ring.
Mohammed Khalin Hussain, 33, and Ibras Khan, 30, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supplying controlled drugs (cocaine).
Hussain was sentenced to seven years and eight months and Khan was sentenced to nine years in prison.
James Quarton
Prolific burglar James Quarton was sentenced to 14 months in prison.
In footage he can be seen frantically rifling through the contents of the black Ford Cougar’s inside car door and centre console looking for anything he can steal.
In the end, he only got an iPhone, a lighter, and some loose change from the Delta private hire vehicle, parked in School Lane in the city centre.
The whole “smash and grab” operation lasts less than 30 seconds.
At the time, Quarton, 30, of no fixed address, was already awaiting sentence for an identical offence, where he broke into a parked car belonging to a 20-year-old female student and stole a laptop.
He was sentenced for these offences, plus another of production of cannabis.
The court heard that drug addiction had become a “way of life” and prison a “second home” to Quarton.
Michael Davies
A drug dealer who drove a car at a police officer, assaulted another and knocked an elderly woman to the floor to avoid arrest was jailed.
Michael Davies, of Poole Avenue, in Orford, tried to flee from police three times - even after officers detained him with captor spray.
Davies pleaded guilty to possession of class B (cannabis) with intent to supply, dangerous driving, resisting arrest, assaulting a police constable, escaping lawful custody and common assault.
He was jailed for five years.
Sean Clamp
(Image: mike duffy)
A shameless thief caught on video stealing a shop charity box - by burning through its security chord - was jailed.
Footage shows Sean Clamp, 29, set fire to the chord, casually lighting a flame as he pretends to be interested in buying vape products at Electro Vapors on Stanley Road in Bootle on Tuesday, February 19.
Smoke could be seen drifting from the cord, which the thief attempts to wave away, worried his ruse could be figured out.
Appearing at South Sefton Magistrates Court he was sentenced to four weeks imprisonment and asked to pay compensation.
Roy Seddon
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Roy Seddon, 48, called his 43-year-old girlfriend Lisa Carr a “slag” and mocked her about a scar she already had on her face.
She became upset, yet when she made to leave, the bully pushed her from behind to the back, causing her to fall to the floor.
Ms Carr hit her face on the speakers of his hi-fi system, causing two cuts including a deep wound, which damaged muscle tissue.
The judge said it was concerning that Seddon did not accept he had a problem with alcohol, adding: “It’s clear you can’t handle your drink.”
He jailed him for 12 months and handed him an indefinite restraining order to protect Miss Carr.
Rhyan Kelly and Callum Johnson
Rhyan Kelly, 18, and Callum Johnson, 23, were both jailed after police raided a vulnerable woman’s one-bedroom flat and found heroin and cocaine worth almost £6,000. The duo had been using it as a drugs den.
They were each jailed for two years.
Charles Farrell
Charles Farrell was serving a suspended sentence for ringing police while pleasuring himself, when he was caught exposing himself to young women.
Liverpool Crown Court heard a scared woman saw Farrell “fully naked” and staring at her on the evening of October 6 last year.
A teenage woman and the girl also spotted him on four occasions around this time, while a young male reported seeing him at the window.
Judge Clement Goldstone, QC, said Farrell knew his victims - including the young girl - were looking at him.
He said: “Quite deliberately you chose to stand in the window of an upper room naked at a time when those girls or the woman was within eyeshot.
“You did so I have no doubt in order to derive some sort of sexual excitement from seeing them
“You knew and indeed intended that they should be seen and you knew and intended that these people would be distressed by what they saw.”
He jailed Farrell for two years and told him to sign on the Sex Offenders Register for seven years.
Debra Hill
(Image: PA)
A bus inspector was jailed after stealing large sums of money from a Christmas savings club for bus drivers.
Liverpool Crown Court heard Debra Hill, 56, was the manager of a saving fund into which employees at Arriva’s St Helens bus depot paid a part of their wages.
An investigation revealed Hill siphoned off a total of £76,050 into her own bank account from the savings club, which she jointly set up with a colleague, David Pimblett.
Hill, of Orange Tree Close, Stockbridge Village, initially denied she had stolen the money and claimed she transferred the money to her own account so that she could pay out to drivers who were leaving the company.
But eventually she pleaded guilty to fraud and blamed her behaviour on stress at work.
Judge Gary Woodhall said Hill’s offending was so serious that only a custodial sentence would do and he jailed her for two years and nine months.
Phillip Manning, Tony Kelly and Bryan Thomas
A man was left fighting for his life after three thugs travelled from Merseyside to Salford to carry out a terrifying gun attack.
A bullet careered off a door and struck the victim - lodging near his spine - when Phillip Manning, Tony Kelly and Bryan Thomas shot at a home in Ordsall.
He later made a full recovery - but the attackers, all linked to the region, have now been handed significant jail terms.
Manning, 31, Kelly, 27, and Thomas, 19, admitted wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and possession of a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence.
(Image: liverpool echo)
Appearing at Manchester Crown Court, Manning, of HMP Wakefield, and Kelly, of HMP Manchester, were each sentenced to 16-and-a-half years in prison.
Thomas, who was also sentenced for his role in a kidnap, was jailed for 17 years with a four-year extended licence.
Nicholas and Stuart Curtis
(Image: Merseyside Police)
Two brothers who took part in a “frenzied” attack on a woman neighbour they had argued with were jailed for a total of 34 years for her murder.
Nicholas and Stuart Curtis both got involved in the brutal, and ultimately fatal, assault against Glenda Jackson after she had allegedly damaged a van which belonged to one of them.
Liverpool Crown Court heard how Nicholas, 32, used a knife to repeatedly stab the 44-year-old, while his brother Stuart, 31, delivered a series of savage kicks and stamps to her head.
As the minimum terms of 18 years for Nicholas, and 16 years for dad-of-one Stuart, both of Mersey Walk, Tranmere, but formerly of Grayson Mews, were relayed to the packed courtroom, supporters of Ms Jackson were heard to whisper: “Yesss!”
Both were handed life sentences for their part in the murderous assault.
Kenneth Wright
(Image: liverpool echo)
Wright was snared by his would-be victim while on a house-raiding spree that saw him steal food from a freezer.
He had already plundered frozen food from one Fazakerley home when he targeted a second house on the night of March 27.
Yet his plot was foiled when a man who lived there heard him trying to break in through a window.
The intended victim was spooked by the noise made by Wright, spotted the burglar and then chased him through the back garden.
The daring homeowner tackled the criminal and held him until the arrival of police.
Wright was jailed after admitting two counts of burglary at Liverpool Crown Court.
The 45-year-old, of no fixed address but from Walton, was sentenced to four years and three months.
David Ellis
Brutal Ellis beat his ex-girlfriend so badly he broke her ribs and left her with a bleed on the brain.
The 50-year-old was jailed after the violent attack on 27-year-old Abigail Taylor at their home in February.
Police were called to the couple’s address on Woodvale Road in Woolton on February 27 and found Ms Taylor with a catalogue of serious injuries.
On the night of the attack a neighbour reportedly heard him shouting abuse: “Get out you fg slut … I’ll fg kill you” and that this continued over the next couple of hours.
After police forced entry to the flat, Ms Taylor was discovered with injuries to her face, two black eyes, dried blood on her face and she was struggling to speak.
Ellis, who has six previous convictions for 14 offences, was jailed for nine years and nine months after pleaded guilty to a section 18 domestic assault.
Mark Holmes and John Blake
(Image: police)
Drug smugglers Holmes and Blake had their £6m cocaine plot busted when police searched the HGV they were using to transport drugs.
The pair had made it through Dover on their journey from Spain, but came to the attention of police when the vehicle broke down in Derbyshire.
They were arrested because officers suspected they were moving drugs - which police later found in a hidden compartment after seizing the lorry.
Unaware of the discovery Holmes, now on bail, repeatedly rung the police for his lorry to be returned.
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Police allowed that to happen - then followed the vehicle and swooped as Holmes and Blake searched for the drugs, using a special key to open the hidden compartment.
Holmes, 41 and of of Derbyshire Hill Road in St Helens, was jailed for 17 years, while his accomplice, John Blake, 48 and of Ashton-in-Makerfield, was handed a 13 year and seven months sentence.
Torture and kidnap gang
(Image: Handout)
Members of a gang who impersonated police to kidnap and torture a dad were this week jailed for more than 40 years.
On July 26 last year, five men posing as police officers in full uniform - including armed vests, hats and radios - put their victim under fake arrest.
The 33-year-old dad was then put into a stolen Audi A3 and believed he was heading to a police station.
His attackers even pretended to radio ahead - a message which was answered by a gang member hiding in the boot.
However after driving away the gang revealed ‘we are not police - it is going to be a long night’ and the victim was struck with a metal pole.
In the 18 hours that followed the violent gang tortured the dad, first in woodland then in a house, beating him with metal batons, stabbing him with knives, gouging his eye with a metal stick, attacking him with a machete, burning him with an iron and pouring boiling water over him.
David Kelly, 28, of Gonville Road, Bootle was sentenced to 13 years and six months for kidnap, false imprisonment, GBH with intent, dangerous driving and aggravated vehicle taking.
Liam Field, of Kevins Drive, in Kirkby, was sentenced to 12 years and nine months for kidnap, false imprisonment and GBH with intent.
John Hayter of Woodhurst Close, Huyton was sentenced to 8 years and one month for false imprisonment and GBH with intent.
Meanwhile a 17-year-old youth - who cannot be named for legal reasons - was detained for five years for false imprisonment and intent to supply crack cocaine and heroin.
Daniel Mason Ward
(WARNING graphic images)
Racist thug Ward ‘growled’ as he bit a hole in a policeman’s ear before gnashing on his arm while on bail for robbery.
Daniel Mason Ward, 26, of Norton Hill, Windmill Hill, Runcorn, told the officer “I don’t want to go back to prison”.
(Image: cheshirepolice)
However he then chomped on PC Christopher Birchall’s ear as the constable was arresting him over an alleged assault on a woman outside a takeaway on High Street in the Old Town.
The attack, which happened on December 14, left the officer requiring stitches and surgery and with permanent scars.
(Image: cheshirepolice)
Ward’s long history of assaulting police officers and resisting arrest, prompted Judge Steven Everett, Recorder of Chester, to note that if magistrates had dealt with Ward as they “should have done, he might not have been out to commit the assault on the police officer, biting through his ear”.
At Chester Crown Court Ward was handed a 13-year prison sentence with four years on extended licence.
Samuel Whitby
(Image: cheshirepolice)
A cyber paedophile from Runcorn who urged a young internet user to drug his sister then sexually assault her on camera was jailed.
Sick internet predator Samuel Whitby, 26, of Beacon Hill View, Weston Point, tried to groom online around ten 13-16 year olds via Yahoo chat, email and the Kik Messenger app, asking them to fulfil his depraved requests on camera.
He pleaded guilty to two counts of attempting to incite a child to engage a child in sexual activity, one involving two internet users who said they were 13 and 14 and were involved in requests for the most serious sex acts, and another count in connection with nine purported young teenagers aged 13 to 16.
The court heard the sister who he wanted to be abused while unconscious was 21 years old.
Judge Thompson sentenced Whitby to four years and six months in prison, slapped him with a life-time Sexual Harm Prevention Order, and ordered him to spend the rest of his life on the sex offenders register.
Whitby must also pay a £1,700 in victim surcharge.
Patrick Wilson
(Image: Merseyside Police)
A violent drunk and serial career criminal tried to murder a bouncer in Liverpool city centre because he was refused entry to a late night bar.
Patrick Wilson was so incensed at being barred from Ruby Blues, in Great Charlotte Street, that he walked a two-and-a-half mile round trip back home and into town to arm himself with three knives.
Alarming CCTV footage showed the 60-year-old returning from his Vauxhall home with one blade in his hand and a further two weapons tucked into his trouser waistband.
Wilson, who has a record of 95 previous convictions for an eye-watering 228 offences, yelled, “I told you I’d come back” after knifing doorman Mark Brady at around 11.30pm on Friday, August 31.
The registered bouncer’s nipple was sliced but footage of the incident showed Wilson had attempted to stab the victim’s chest cavity and heart area, which was narrowly missed.
Immediately after the attack, alcoholic Wilson was seen shouting on his mobile phone, “Where are you? I’ve just done it!”
Mr Brady was rushed to the Royal Liverpool Hospital where a CT scan showed he had been extremely lucky, and he only needed three staples to the wound.
Wilson, who made no comment in police interview, was jailed for 16 years, with an extended licence period of four years.
Michael Riley and Jason Millar
(Image: Merseyside Police)
Paedophile couple Michael Riley and Jason Millar took turns abusing a vulnerable boy after plying him with cocaine and alcohol – leaving him “a broken child with no future”.
The couple, who have since moved from Walton to Strathmartine Road, Dundee, blackmailed the 13-year-old boy by telling him social services would take him from his mum if he stopped going to see them.
Martine Snowdon, prosecuting, told the court Riley and Millar gained the trust of the victim’s mum following the death of a relative and she believed they were providing “much needed support and guidance”.
However the truth emerged after she discovered he had told a friend he felt suicidal and that someone “had been messing with him,” prompting her to ask questions.
(Image: Merseyside Police)
The court heard the boy was interviewed by Merseyside Police and said the abuse began with Riley and Millar “brushing up against him” with their genitals and questioning him about his sexuality.
Things progressed when they plied him with cocaine and alcohol, which affected his memory of the incidents, and he said they began groping him and touching his penis.
The abuse escalated to the point where the perverts took turns having sex with him after giving him cocaine.
Riley was jailed for 10 years and nine months; and Millar for nine years; after Riley pleaded guilty to three counts and Millar one count of causing a child to engage in sexual activity.
Jack Wall and Kallum Rimmer
One of Southport’s notorious Gelling brothers was chased through a newsagent store and stabbed in an apparent ‘gang feud’.
Jordan Gelling - once banned alongside his siblings James and Ashley from the town’s arcades - was set upon by two rival yobs.
Jack Wall, 23, and Kallum Rimmer, 24, chased the 27-year-old through Jo Kelly’s News & General Store in Bispham Road.
CCTV cameras captured Wall wielding a lock knife and Rimmer leaping over a freezer to try and catch Gelling in the shop.
They cornered him outside before a fight broke out, during which Gelling suffered stab wounds to his buttocks and arms.
But the thug, who was treated at Southport Hospital later that evening, refused to help police officers with their investigation.
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
And the following day a mystery gunman opened fire on Wall’s home in Bispham Road, damaging two windows at the property.
Officers identified Wall and Rimmer on CCTV, while Rimmer’s DNA was also found on a bottle he was holding in the shop.
Wall was caught with the lock knife after trying to cycle away from police on June 13 while Rimmer handed himself in the following day.
Both lawyers said their clients accepted they would be sentenced on the basis of a joint enterprise involving the use of a knife.
Wall’s girlfriend sobbed in the public gallery as he was jailed for two years and four months while Rimmer was handed two years behind bars.
Joshua O’Donnell
(Image: Merseyside Police)
O’Donnell was jailed for nine and a half years after he fractured a young woman’s skull with a machete while high on drink and drugs.
A judge told the 20-year-old: “You must surely appreciate how you risked killing her that night.”
He said that after “inflicting that terrible injury“ with the metre-long weapon he went back inside his flat, leaving Megan Lea’s friend to care for her as she lay bleeding on the ground.
O’Donnell had only met his 18-year-old victim and her friend earlier that night after his friend had introduced them while they were out drinking in St Helens town centre.
Zillah Williams, prosecuting, said they met up again later in the early hours of October 5 last year in a club and the two girls agreed to go back to O’Donnell’s flat in Pennine Way n a taxi.
O’Donnell said he was going inside to get the money but came out with a baseball bat, which he gave to his friend, and the machete. The driver drove off, chased by the other man.
Miss Lea tried to calm down O’Donnell, who had consumed alcohol and cocaine, “and he simply struck her on the top of the head with the machete and she immediately staggered and fell to the floor”.
His friend came back and dialled 999 and Miss Lea was taken to hospital where it was found she had suffered a fractured skull and bleeding on the brain. She had an eight centimetre cut which needed seven stitches and has been left with a scar on her forehead.
O’Donnell pleaded guilty to wounding with intent.
Andrew Atkinson
Atkinson was jailed after a campaign of abuse against two women over two years.
He pleaded guilty after being accused of controlling and coercive behaviour, as well as a number of assaults.
The 22-year-old, of Monaghan Close in Orrell Park, physically and emotionally abused the women on a number of occasions in various ways.
Atkinson was sentenced to two years in prison after pleading guilty to the offences that happened between early 2017 and February 2019.
Joseph Lane
(Image: Merseyside Police)
Drunken joy-rider Lane killed his friend after speeding away from police in a stolen car.
The 27-year-old and his passenger Brandon Griffin were flung through the windscreen of the Vauxhall Vectra after Lane lost control and smashed into a telegraph pole.
Victim Mr Griffin, 21, is believed to have been involved in the theft of the car from a driveway in Birkenhead the same morning and had offered Lane a chance to drive it only minutes before the devastating collision.
Lane, of Kirkland Avenue, Tranmere, was jailed for eight and a half years at Liverpool Crown Court after admitting causing Mr Griffin’s death by dangerous driving.
Kelvin Lloyd
Trusted assistant manager Lloyd nearly brought a popular city centre theatre to its knees after stealing more than £273,000 from its coffers.
The 27-year-old held a high degree of responsibility as treasurer of the Epstein theatre in Hanover Street.
But unbeknown to managers, he was funnelling huge sums of money - which should have gone to creditors and performers - into his own bank accounts.
Among his “frivolous spending” was over £10,000 in online food orders to Deliveroo and Uber Eats, as well as a holiday in the United States.
Lloyd, of Jubilee Street, Shotton, Flintshire, was jailed for 28 months after pleading guilty to theft
Thomas Bimson and Ibrar Saddique
Thomas Bimson held neither a driving licence and was not insured when he was given the keys to a hired BMW 330X by Ibrar Saddique, 35, after the pair had spent the evening knocking back Aperol Spritzes with friends in the Malmaison Hotel.
They then “took the car for a spin” around Liverpool city centre, hitting speeds of close to 50mph along Dale Street and The Strand.
Their antics concluded with the death of Matthew Bradley, from Glenavy in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, who was struck as he was crossing The Strand close to the Albert Dock.
After abandoning the vehicle, it was another three days before Bimson and Saddique handed themselves in to police.
During the trial, Bimson tried to shift the blame entirely on Mr Bradley for the fatal collision.
But the 23-year-old, of Waterloo Road, Vauxhall, was sentenced to eight years in prison after being found guilty of causing death by dangerous driving.
Saddique, of Sunnybank Lane, Pudsey, West Yorkshire was sentenced to 18 months in prison after being found guilty of aiding and abetting a driver who caused death by dangerous driving.
Wirral ram raid gang
A Wirral-based gang which rammed stolen high-powered cars into shops to steal cash machines was jailed for a total of 34 years.
The six-strong crew travelled the country in stolen vehicles on cloned number plates, ram raiding shops and breaking up ATM machines with tools, sledgehammers and saws. They stole a total of £42,000 and caused thousands of pounds worth of damage.
John Kearney, 29, of Old Chester Road in Tranmere, was sentenced to five years. Benjamin Ollerhead, 21, of Prince Edward Street in Birkenhead, received five years years.
Benjamin Sysum, 30, of Victoria Fields in Tranmere, received five years and six months. Mark Fitzgerald, 25, of Violet Road in Claughton was sentenced to five years, Neil Piercy, 36, of Holme Lane in Oxton will serve five years and Peter Badley, 38, of no fixed abode received five years.
Kearney was also sentenced to a further 18 months for burglaries in Lancashire and Teesside. Ollerhead was sentenced to a further six months for a burglary in Teesside and Sysum was sentenced to a further 18 months for the supply of cocaine in Merseyside.
They pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit burglary and handling stolen goods.
John Ellison and Kadell Rivers
Toxteth drug dealer John Ellison hid almost 50 wraps of heroin and cocaine inside him - but was unable to foil police tracking his antics.
He dropped onto the radar of officers when the Audi A3 he was using was linked to repeat visits to Winsford drug dealing hotspots.
The 29-year-old and his associate were stopped by officers, who took their details, on February 24.
A fortnight later they were halted near Northwich - when bags of cannabis were thrown from the vehicle before it stopped for police.
An initial search found Ellison with £200 in cash and four mobile phones in the car.
Ellison and his associate, Kadell Rivers, were then arrested and taken into custody - where it emerged Ellison had secreted 27 wraps of heroin and 22 wraps of cocaine inside his body.
Rivers, 24 and of Skelton Road in Stretford, had concealed a mobile phone SIM card.
Both pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to supply heroin and cocaine.
Ellison, of Elaine Street, also admitted a charge of possessing cannabis.
Ellison was jailed for four years and Rivers for three years and four months.
Therese Curphey
(Image: Merseyside Police)
Therese Curphey neglected her dying 91-year-old mum even when she had broken ribs and shockingly deep pressure sores.
The 53-year-old, who has always denied responsibility for the death of her elderly mum Theresa Curphey senior, was unanimously convicted of gross negligence manslaughter.
The West Derby woman had finally called 999 in February 2017, telling the call handler her mum was “cold and clammy, had stopped talking and was making horrible noises”.
That call brought paramedics to the Lydford Road home where they initially struggled to gain entry to the bedroom because there were so many objects piled high behind the door.
The sick pensioner was rushed to hospital, but her condition had become so grave that she died later that day.
Ronald Culshaw
(Image: liverpool echo)
“Evil” Culshaw murdered a vulnerable dad in a vicious attack.
The drunken thug stamped on six stone Ian Conning so hard he left footprints on his victim’s clothes.
The bully was this week jailed for life for the brutal assault in a Kirkby flat, where the pair were drinking with others.
When police arrived on Kelday Close it was Culshaw who led them into the flat, where Mr Conning’s body was laid at the entrance.
Culshaw claimed there had been an “accident” and he had found Mr Conning in that condition when he arrived at the flat.
Mr Conning was still alive and rushed to Aintree hospital.
He never woke from a coma and died on November 6, three days after life support had been withdrawn.
His wounds included a severe brain injury, a fractured skull and 13 fractured ribs.
The officers who attended the scene noted footwear marks - later found to match Culshaw’s - on the 47-year-old’s clothing.
Culshaw, of Rushey Hey Drive in Kirkby, admitted murder.
The 56-year-old was jailed for life with a minimum of 18 years and 190 days.
Paul King
King stole cash from a Subway restaurant but was arrested after a brave worker forced him off the road in her car.
The 38-year-old marched into a Subway in Tytherington Business Park, Macclesfield and headed straight for the safe.
He said “don’t” when challenged by staff, stole cash and pulled out a knife when a worker chased him outside.
King then ran towards a public pathway opposite Webbs Close, jumped on a mountain bike and rode off towards Tytherington Lane.
Undeterred, the shop worker returned to the Subway, got in her car and drove around looking for him.
She saw him cycling on Manchester Road and forced him off his bike on Marlborough Drive after driving towards him. He then tried to flee on foot but was found soon after hiding behind a tree in a wooded area by police.
Three days earlier, on March 3 last year, King had stolen cash from a Subway on Mill Street in Macclesfield, when he also said “don’t” when challenged by staff.
King pleaded guilty to robbery in relation to the incident at the Mill Street shop.
In relation to the incidents inside and outside the Subway outlet in Tytherington Business Park, he admitted charges of theft and possessing a knife in a public place.
As well as the offences in Macclesfield, he was sentenced for shoplifting, possessing a bladed weapon (a Stanley knife) in a public place and possessing an offensive weapon (a knuckleduster) in a public place in relation to an incident at The Co-operative Food store on Speke Road in Hunts Cross.
King, of Oak View in Speke, was jailed for five years.
Paul Jones
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Child rapist Jones kept his conviction secret when released from prison before molesting two more young boys.
The 51-year-old, from Wirral, raped a five-year-old boy in an appalling attack when he was aged 19 in 1986.
The twisted paedophile was sentenced to five years' youth custody at Carlisle Crown Court in December that year.
But after he was released, Jones moved to Tranmere, where he started grooming a boy, aged 10, and his friend, 14.
Jones, now of Hayling Avenue, Portsmouth, originally denied 16 counts of indecent assault and was set to stand trial.
But the pervert, who also has two convictions for burglary, returned to court and pleaded guilty to all of the charges.
He was jailed for nine years.
Peter Cunningham
(Image: Liverpool ECHO)
Suicidal Cunningham robbed a McDonald’s armed with a foot-long knife - and offered to hurt his victim so she could claim compensation.
Liverpool Crown Court heard how on December 12 the dad had intended to take his own life, but changed his mind at the last minute.
Instead, the 38-year-old, who had been drinking, went to Edge Lane McDonald’s armed with a knife and demanded money from a safe.
After that he told the petrified manager that she could make a claim for damages - and even offered to hit her so she could claim even more money.
Jailing Cunningham for five years today, Judge Stuart Driver, QC, said: “Your victim was threatened with a knife which left her absolutely terrified.”
Cunningham, of Wycliffe Road, Anfield, pleaded guilty to robbery and possessing an offensive weapon.
George Kelbrick
(Image: Merseyside Police)
Teenager Kelbrick was said to have a “bright future” - but has now been locked up after being caught selling drugs in a city club.
The then 18-year-old was caught after being seen “hanging around the toilets” of the bar.
On his arrest Kelbrick, of Trispen Close, Halewood, volunteered to police that he had drugs on him and police found 10 wraps of cocaine weighing 3.1 grams, with a street value of between £124 to £310.
A single text message on his phone found by police also said ‘are you on the graft?’.
He provided ‘no comment’ on interview but pleaded guilty to possession with intent to supply Class A and Class B drugs.
Kelbrick, now 20, was sentenced to 28 months in a young offenders institute.
Steven Derbyshire
Fraudster Derbyshire diverted a deaf woman’s disability payments and wages into his own bank account.
The 29-year-old took advantage of his victim’s ‘vulnerability’ to take control of her finances over several years.
He bought a VW Golf as his victim began to experience growing money worries.
At one point the woman, in her 60s, faced losing her home.
In 2017 the woman’s colleagues became suspicious and contacted social services.
This resulted in a mutli-agency investigation into the missing cash, which led police to Derbyshire.
Derbyshire, of Oakfield Road, was found guilty of three counts of fraud and one count of theft after a trial.
He was jailed for 30 months.
Nathan Muat
(Image: Merseyside)
Nathan Muat endlessly bullied his “vulnerable and simple” friend before battering him to death on a fishing trip in a Merseyside park.
He took his pal Peter Seeclear, 45, who suffered from mental health difficulties, to Stadt Moers Park in Whiston.
But during that visit, last October, the 45-year-old flew into a rage and repeatedly beat him until he lay dying in his tent.
(Image: Merseyside Police)
He thought he had got away with murder after claiming his victim had an epileptic fit - but a post-mortem examination revealed he had suffered severe chest injuries.
Muat, 45, of Upper Parliament Street, Toxteth, was convicted of murder after a trial.
He was jailed for life with a minimum of 19 years.
Mark Patterson and Matthew Duncan
(Image: Cheshire Police)
A woman and her child were confined to a bedroom by these two men, who took over her home to run their drug dealing enterprise.
Cheshire Police said made the victims “live in fear” after forcing their way into the house to peddle cocaine and heroin.
A spokesman for the force said dealers Patterson, 29, and of Coniston Street, Everton and Duncan, 28, and of Warham Road, Anfield made the woman and her young daughter “live only in her bedroom”.
The pair used the rest of her home “to run their county lines business”.
Cheshire Police said Patterson and Duncan targeted the woman and her young daughter at their home “through manipulative and coercive behaviour which left them trapped.”
After doing so “they then used it as a place to sell, supply or store drugs