Courts have remained busy throughout the coronavirus pandemic and November was no exception.
Criminals have been locked up across the country for serious crimes. They include a father and his two son who started a New Year’s Day brawl in a pub when they were refused more alcohol, a paedophile who saw justice catch up with him 20 years after he committed the crime, and a patient who caused almost £50,000 of damage to a hospital room after causing a fire by smoking in bed.
Here are the criminals and their crimes.
Reuben, Leonard and Nino Edwards
The father and his sons began a brawl in a pub where glasses and chairs were thrown after the landlord refused to serve them more alcohol.
Reuben Edwards, 49, and sons Leonard Edwards, 22, and Nino Edwards, 21, assaulted the landlord and customers at the Iron Duke pub in Pontypool on New Year’s Day after drinking copious amounts of pink gin and Monster energy drink.
Stephen Davies
Davies subjected a young girl to a “campaign” of rapes and sexual abuse over a prolonged period.
The rapes resulted in the schoolgirl falling pregnant, the court was told.
Davies collapsed in the dock as he was jailed for 16 and-a-half years – the third time he had engaged in what the judge described as a “spectacular if not terribly convincing” behaviour.
Paul Gillet
The twisted world of Gillet who “wormed his way” into the lives of lovers and business partners before fleecing them and leaving them in debt was laid bare in court.
He left women, who fell for his flattery, with thousands of pounds of debt and persuaded a business partner and his wife to hand over huge sums he pocketed for himself.
One of the women he conned called him a “pathological liar – and a good one”, while a judge said the 30-year-old had made it his life’s work “to dupe and defraud innocent people”.
Lianne Robinson
She was being helped by police and paramedics but abused and spat at the officers and taunted them that they were going to catch Hepatitis C.
Robinson lashed out at the officers and subjected them to “vile language” for around an hour at an address in Neath.
Sending the defendant to prison, a judge said the police and paramedics had gone to help the woman, and it was hard to imagine a more disgusting form of assault than spitting – especially in the current Covid crisis.
Simon Porritt
A paedophile who subjected two girls to horrific abuse has finally been jailed years after his victims came forward and police forces united to bring him to justice.
Simon Porritt, now 70, abused his first victim – a Newcastle schoolgirl – in the 1980s before he moved away and started using a different name.
He moved to south Wales where he abused his second victim. She came forward to report that she had been abused by Porritt in the 1990s.
William James
The karaoke singer changed his name by deed poll on numerous occasions to make fraudulent insurance claims for fires at his home and received more than £21,000 in payouts.
The 64-year-old made 11 insurance claims over an 11-year period under four different names after taking policies out on his Blackwood home.
All of the claims were made fraudulently and were made in respect of made-up fires at the property caused by a chip pan or oven hob.
Andrew Jacobs and Tony Pace
Jacobs targeted people selling expensive items on Gumtree and strangled a woman in her doorway as he attempted to steal a diamond ring worth £1,000.
The 31-year-old assaulted Sarah Isaac at her home in Pontypridd on November 24 last year while her teenage daughter was upstairs.
He also stole a Rolex watch worth £6,000 after threatening Gareth Coates with a knife at his Cardiff home on September 3 last year and an iPhone worth £650 from a man in Bristol on August 23 last year in a similar robbery.
Professional boxer Tony Pace, 27, was also involved in the Cardiff robbery and found found guilty following a trial.
Alex Green
He took out a kitchen knife and threatened to stab a couple who asked him to leave for attempting to start a party at their home.
Green, 25, was at the home in Bridgend on August 28 when he brandished the weapon.
He was unknown to the couple but tagged along with a friend of theirs to their address, where he began to play music and attempted to start a house party.
Abdul Battar
The teenager deliberately selected a gay man for a knife-point robbery in the belief he would make an easy target.
Battar pulled a kitchen knife on his victim after luring him into a trap in his car.
Marc Jones
The man in his forties sent a series of disgusting sexual messages to an undercover police officer believing he was chatting online to a 13-year-old girl.
Jones told his target he had always wanted sex with somebody of her age, but had never found anyone local before.
In one message the 43-year-old joked that if the schoolgirl was ugly, he would still have sex with her but would put a bag over her head.
Ryan Lewis
He drunkenly assaulted his ex-partner then viciously kicked and punched her friend when she tried to help.
Lewis went on to assault the police officer who rushed to the scene, and was so aggressive he had to be pepper-sprayed and taken to the floor.
The steel labourer has a history of violent offending, including two previous convictions for assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
Jason Palmer
The bullying ex-boyfriend hit his former partner with an “almighty” punch just because she was talking to a man selling sweets.
Palmer turned up drunk to his estranged partner’s property in Cardiff and became enraged after finding her stood outside having a cigarette with the tradesman.
Palmer then pushed the woman into the property before punching and destroying her new TV and then hitting her with one punch.
Lee Williams
The patient at Wales’ largest hospital caused almost £50,000 of damage and resulted in dozens of sick people to be evacuated after causing a fire by smoking in bed.
Williams sparked the blaze at the University Hospital of Wales (UHW) in Cardiff after repeated warnings that he could not smoke.
Despite stern instructions from staff the 44-year-old lit up a cigarette while wearing an oxygen mask and caused a serious fire sending thick smoke through the ward.
Wyndham Bennett
The dealer was busted after police found his text messages advertising the sale of drugs.
Officers found messages sent by Bennett to potential customers describing “absolute fire” cannabis.
Cardiff Crown Court heard the 27-year-old drug dealer was arrested after police raided his Pontypool home in July 2019.
Damien Drab
He was jailed after the Royal Mail discovered hundreds of ecstasy tablets in the post.
Drab, 29, was arrested after a parcel containing 208 ecstasy tablets sent from the Netherlands was intercepted by the UK Border Agency.
After searching his home, police also found cash, cocaine, a quantity of the mixing agent, Benzocaine, and digital scales.
Mohammed Hafiz and Rebecca Williams
A woman was violently attacked in the street by three people who launched kicks at her face and body.
Hafiz and Williams were jailed for their part in the attack on Erin James outside an address in Main Street, Barry, on the evening of April 10 this year.
At one point Ms James had to roll up into a ball to protect herself from repeated blows to the face, body, and head.
Darren Curtin
The conman who stole thousands from his own mother has now been caught with hundreds of sickening child abuse images and videos on his phone.
Curtin was found in possession of horrifying material, some which some showed babies being abused.
Cardiff Crown Court heard Curtin is already in prison for swindling his elderly widowed mother out of £15,000 to buy cocaine, clothes, and an oven and was due to be released at the end of November.
But the 54-year-old has been handed extra jail time after police discovered he had amassed an “appalling” collection of more than 2,000 child sex images and videos that he claimed was borne out of “boredom”.
Simon Finch
The disgruntled former defence worker has been jailed for four and a half years for disclosing “damaging” top secret details of a UK missile system.
Finch, 50, could have put servicemen and women in jeopardy if the leaked classified material had fallen into enemy hands, the Old Bailey was told.
He pleaded guilty to recording and disclosing classified information, in breach of the Official Secrets Act, after a senior judge rejected his defence of “duress by circumstance”.
Lee Howells
The drug-user with a history of violent offending was caught with a knife casually hanging from the waistband of his trousers.
Howells became “aggressive” with police officers who approached him in the middle of the afternoon, and tried to run away but was grabbed and detained.
The 41-year-old – who claimed he had just found the knife in the street while walking home – had a history of violence including pulling an air pistol on his brother in a pub, threatening a secondhand car salesman with a machete and football hooliganism.
His advocate said that since Howells had been a teenager there were only four years when he had not been convicted of an offence of one kind or another – and those four years were probably spent in jail.
Lewis Jones and Dylan Howells
A teenager was lured to a meeting before being ambushed by three boys and repeatedly stabbed and punched as well as having a gun held to his head.
Jones and Howells were part of a trio who lured a 16-year-old to a meeting point before attacking him.
Anthony Thomas
He stole £500 from the bank account of an elderly and vulnerable woman who was a neighbour of his mother.
Thomas knew his victim well, and she had previously helped him out financially.
But he repaid her kindness by taking a blank cheque from her bedroom and using it to steal cash from her bank account.
Jada Francis
The psychiatric patient assaulted 11 staff members over a five-month period in hospital.
Francis attacked and injured the hospital staff while she was sectioned under the Mental Health Act at Heatherwood Court Hospital on Llantrisant Road, Pontypridd.
The 19-year-old, who was 18 at the time of the offences, assaulted staff by punching, kicking, elbowing and biting them while they were attempting to restrain her on the ward.
Wayne and James Jones
The father and son team were running a drug business from the family home in Neath.
When police raided Wayne and James Jones’ house they found 2kg of cannabis along with a quantity of cocaine which James Jones was selling. They also found £4,500 in cash hidden under the dad’s bed.
The raid happened just three days after James Jones had become a father himself.
Loselles Wilson
The gambling addict turned to dealing heroin and cocaine in order to pay off thousands of pounds he owed to a drugs gang he borrowed money from.
The 46-year-old, from Cardiff, was found with more than £20,000 worth of drugs in a rucksack when he was detained by an officer for breaching a deportation order. He was also found with three mobile phones which he used to sell drugs to customers.
Scott West
Jailed for two years for a drunken assault on his partner in her own home.
West violently shoved the woman during a row – causing her to fall to the floor and strike her head on a metal door handle as she did so.
He then lied to police by claiming his girlfriend has stumbled and fallen.
Barry Ali Khali
Jailed after buying a “fearsome” double-ended flick knife on the internet while “shopping out of boredom”.
He bought the weapon from China but it was intercepted before it reached him.
Swansea Crown Court heard the 51-year-old has previous convictions for violence, drug dealing, and possession of offensive weapons including a sword and a bottle of concentrated ammonia.
John Dury
The dealer was caught with drugs, cash, and a knife in a car by police officers in Newport.
Dury was in a lane in the Bettws area when plain-clothes Gwent Police officers noticed him behaving suspiciously with another man in a parked car.
Dale Wigglesworth
The drugs courier was found with up to £1m worth of cocaine after being stopped on the M4 by police.
The 44-year-old had travelled from his home in the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, at 4am on June 6 this year and was destined for an address in Newport.
Leon Wells
The former soldier who killed a dad-of-three a decade ago and who later became involved in organised crime has been jailed again for breaching an order.
Wells, 38, killed Alan Brown in an unprovoked attack outside a pub in Tredegar in May 2008 and was jailed for three years after being convicted of manslaughter.
Since that conviction Wells has been in and out of the courts and was made subject to a serious crime prevention order (SCPO) in 2018. But the defendant was back before Cardiff Crown Court last month after breaching the order for the second time in a year.
Spencer Morris
The drink driver has been jailed after a police chase in which he was said to be “all over the place”.
Morris from Manchester was pursued by police in Wales and officers said it was “lucky no-one was killed” by his “reckless driving”.
Justin Dean Jones
The driver live streamed video of himself racing through residential streets at speeds well in excess of 100mph.
Jones posted a total of four clips on Facebook in what a judge said was a sign of his “warped pride” in what he was doing.
The alarm was raised by somebody in Canada who watched the videos and was so concerned at their contents that they contacted police in Wales.
Zoaib Hussain
The obsessed stalker who spent years harassing a young woman was jailed for contacting his victim just hours after getting out of prison for previous offending.
Hussain used fake social media accounts to message his victim the day after being released from custody on licence.
Swansea Crown Court heard the victim had not been told he was at liberty and was hysterical when she called police to report he had contacted her again.
Clive Bennett, Harley Southway and Jack Bennett
The trio of drunk stag do members caused “mayhem” by attacking innocent pubgoers and police officers.
The incident in Abergavenny left one woman unconscious after being stamped on the head, a police officer bitten on the leg and a Tesco shopper punched in the face by one of the shirtless offenders.
Harley Southway and brothers Jack Bennett and Clive Bennett were all involved in the drunken fracas in June 2019.
Newport Crown Court heard the trio were part of the “absolutely disgraceful incident” on Frogmore Street.
Daniel Jones
He was visiting his newborn baby but stole his former partner’s car keys and was involved in a crash which caused the engine to fly out into a nearby stream.
The 30-year-old stole a Vauxhall Astra belonging to the mother of his four children on October 4 after visiting her home near Aberdare.
The vehicle was later seen in the Penywaun area by police but the driver made off. It was eventually found at 3.20am the following morning on Hirwaun roundabout.
Paulo Lopes
He grabbed a wine bottle during an argument with his partner and hit her in the face with it.
When police arrived at the couple’s house they found blood splatters on the walls and blood-stained clothes.
But Lopes lied to officers and claimed the woman had fallen and hit her on a radiator. The victim subsequently gave a different account and told police she had fallen over while walking home from the shops with a bottle of wine.
Kieran Francombe
Francombe was found with wraps of heroin and crack cocaine as well as a knife.
He was seen by a police officer in Cardiff on December 12 last year riding a mountain bike and acting suspiciously, Cardiff Crown Court was told.
He was followed into Universal Street, Grangetown, before entering an alleyway and engaging in conversation with two women.
Aled Eifion Jones
The drunken farmer sexually assaulted a young woman outside a country pub.
Jones repeatedly tried to kiss the woman despite the victim making it clear she was not interested in him. He then groped and touched her. When she did eventually get away from him he swore at her.
Swansea Crown Court heard that in May this year 46-year-old Jones was in a pub in Carmarthenshire when he made “inappropriate comments” about a young woman’s body.
Geraint Coombes
The driver knocked a cyclist off his bike and caused him terrible injuries after becoming distracted by his mobile phone.
Coombes was changing the song which was playing in his Land Rover when he hit Edward Taylor, sending the teacher crashing to the ground.
Former soldier Coombes then left the gravely injured man on the road and drove away – returning to the scene, throwing his mobile away into the bushes beside the dual carriageway, and telling his victim he had been the one at fault for the crash.
Kevin Gordon Marlow
He had 18 previous convictions for driving without a licence before leading police on a dangerous late-night pursuit through residential streets.
At one point Marlow drove down the wrong side of a dual carriageway with the headlights of his van turned off and then went the wrong way around a roundabout as he tried to escape.
After dumping the vehicle he fled on foot but was knocked to the floor when he ran straight into a police car.
Adam Mark Jones
A man going for an after-pub takeaway was attacked in the street in a sickening unprovoked assault.
The victim was beaten over the head with a length of wood in the incident, and needed 10 stitches to the wound on his scalp.
Swansea Crown Court heard the person who assaulted him, Jones, was drunk at the time and has no recollection of carrying out the attack.
Ieuan Beaton
The thug punched his ex girlfriend and cut her cheek with a shard of glass from a mirror he smashed at her home after being released from prison.
Beaton, 22, assaulted his former partner in the early hours of October 21 at her house in Ebbw Vale when he turned up drunk, having drunk a bottle of vodka.
Despite being told by the woman to leave the property, Beaton became violent and she feared for her life after he told her “You’re going to see me die tonight and I’m going to take you with me”.
Ricky Dupon
The drug dealer’s home was raided by police in the early hours of the morning while his children slept.
The 28-year-old was visited by police at his home in Newport at around 5am on October 5 and was seen throwing a bag out of his bedroom window.
When the bag was recovered, it was found to contain 723.5g of cannabis, scales and a quantity of MDMA which weighed 10.34g, as well as 115 Xanax tablets.
Clare Michelle Jones
She broke into a Swansea care home before stealing possessions belonging to a vulnerable adult inside.
Jones urinated outside Granville House in Slate Street, Morriston, where Granville Court care home is located, before gaining entry into the care home and finding her way to the living area of her victim.
Paul Newberry
The heroin dealer who is due to become a grandfather sold drugs to an undercover officer on two occasions to fund his own addiction.
Newberry, 42, was part of a drugs operation which saw him deliver heroin to customers in Newport who called a drugs line known as the “toffee number”.
Carlo Heron
The drug addict broke into a family’s home and stole two mobile phones and a purse in order to pay off a debt.
Burglar Heron, 45, climbed through a kitchen window into the home of Christopher Cox in Cardiff while his partner and three-year-old daughter slept upstairs.
Mr Cox was sleeping downstairs at around 6.30am on April 17 when he was woken by a noise in the kitchen and when he looked he saw a man standing next to the tumble dryer.
Christopher John Brown
He had never passed a driving test when he sped through a coned-off area of roadworks as he tried to flee from police.
As startled workmen looked on as Brown almost smashed into an coming car then swerved across the carriageway and overtook a line of vehicles. When arrested he was found to be high on cannabis.
Police have described his behaviour as “completely reckless” and said it could have ended in tragedy.
Shane Harries
The callous burglar knocked over an urn containing his victim’s fiancé’s ashes as he ransacked her house.
Harries, 28, targeted his victim Bethany Priest while she was away from her home in Pontypool on June 3 last year and carried out a burglary which saw him take £500 worth of jewellery, including an engagement ring and wedding ring given to Ms Priest by her deceased fiancé.
Vigneswaran Pathmanathan
A man was driven to a quiet spot on Gower and beaten with a hammer and kicked to the head in a “revenge” attack.
Pathmanathan was angry with his victim over a £50 drug deal. After hunting him down in Swansea, Pathmanathan drove the man to Fairwood Common where he viciously assaulted him before driving off and leaving him “to his own fate”.
Callum Berry
He launched an “unbelievably savage” street attack on his partner that left her in hospital with serious injuries and broken teeth.
Berry was seen punching his girlfriend Sarah Truman multiple times in the face after approaching her on a street in Cardiff.
At one point the 25-year-old struck Ms Truman with a “Superman punch” so forceful it could be heard by witnesses in the street.
After hitting his partner to the floor Berry left the area before returning a few moments later and repeating the attack.
Bradley Robinson
The teenager climbed through his neighbour’s kitchen window in the middle of the night and held a knife to her throat while demanding car keys.
Robinson, who was 17 years old at the time of the offence, targeted Vanessa Elliott at her home in Pontypool while her partner was out of the country and held a six-inch kitchen knife to her throat while dragging her round the house for 30 minutes.
He also cut her finger while the victim tried to protect her throat from being slashed, causing her to bleed profusely, and stabbed at a bathroom door after becoming frustrated.
Christian Verrall
Verrall turned his silver Ford Fiesta into a 1,000kg weapon as he smashed into the teen rider in broad day light.
The 32-year-old then fled the scene – leaving his victim for dead before deviously phoning the police claiming that his car had been stolen.
The ugly incident unfolded at around 1.30pm on March 11 in in Frederick Street, Pill, Newport.
Scott Turnbull
He was caught by police just seven minutes after he broke into a woman’s house while she was sleeping.
The 33-year-old ransacked a house in Clos y Deri in Llanelli on September 30.
The woman who lives at the property was awoken during the early hours after a light was switched on elsewhere in the house. She then heard footsteps and began to panic as she lived alone.
Anthony Richardson
He stamped on and kicked his girlfriend less than a month after she gave birth to their daughter.
Richardson, 32, also slapped partner Olivia Morse the day before she gave birth as well as ripping up her baby scan and making her sleep without a blanket if she refused to have sex with him.
Cardiff Crown Court heard how Richardson attacked his girlfriend multiple times at her home in Barry in a one-month period after the birth of their daughter in early October 2019.
Daniel Bird
The drug dealer is behind bars thanks to concerned residents who reported their suspicions to the police.
The eagle-eyed citizens were able to give officers details of a car which had been driving around their flats – and hours later officers swooped on the vehicle outside a Swansea hotel.
One of the occupants of the car, Bird, was found with ready-to-sell heroin and crack cocaine deals, and a set of weighing scales.
Graham Harry John Rogers
The paedophile is back behind bars for sexually abusing young girls just months after being released from his previous sentence.
Rogers’ new victim came forward after reading about him in the papers and during the course of their investigation police also found a second new victim.
Swansea Crown Court heard the first new victim had reported the assault to the authorities at the time of the abuse – more than 20 years ago – but the Crown Prosecution Service had decided not to charge Rogers because of a lack of corroborating evidence, something that “perhaps reflects the approach at the time”.
Kaine Peterson and Daniel Williams
The pair of drug dealers were sending out regular bulk text messages to hundreds of potential customers at a time.
Peterson and Williams’ cocaine selling operation was uncovered after police got access to the details of their iPhone activity.
Cardiff Crown Court heard the Newport pair were running a “substantial” cocaine-dealing business.
Peter Hill
He attacked his mother’s partner and repeatedly punched him in the head even after he was unconscious.
Hill had spent the day of October 8 this year drinking at his home in Geiriol Road in the Townhill area of Swansea with Stephen Rees but “became agitated” when Mr Rees told him in the evening he had had enough.
After leaving the house to buy more alcohol he returned looking for an extra 30p when he threatened Mr Rees.
-- to www.walesonline.co.uk
