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Even famous people break the law. Many celebrities have gone to prison over the years, including comedian Tim Allen and domestic guru Martha Stewart. A good chunk of these stars committed minor offenses involving DUI charges or financial crimes. They typically serve rather short sentences and are often (but not always) able to pick up their lives where they left off. Society can be very forgiving when it comes to those who do their time and repent for their crimes.

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Then there are the celebrities whose criminal activities are on an entirely different level, necessitating several years in prison. They’ve committed crimes that are so bad, it’s next to impossible for fans to forget what they did. The men and women in this list have been involved in sex crimes, trafficked huge amounts of drugs, and even committed murder. Some admitted that they broke the law, while others continue to maintain their innocence. Either way, they’re stuck behind bars for a very long time.

It’s unclear what they will do when they’re released from prison. Some may die while serving out their sentences, while others may disappear from public scrutiny. Regardless, their legacies are forever linked to their poor judgment.

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The following article mentions domestic abuse, child abuse, and sexual assault.

William Hayden became a familiar face on the Discovery Channel’s “Sons of Guns” from 2011 to 2014, a reality show about his family-run weapons shop in Louisiana. But during his 2017 trial, an awful truth about Hayden came to light.

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As The Advocate reported, he was first arrested for raping a preteen girl in 2014 after his assistant contacted the police. This led to a trial where the now-15-year-old testified that he had preyed on her repeatedly, beginning when she was only 11. She was joined on the stand by a 37-year-old woman who alleged that she had also been a victim of child sexual abuse by Hayden over two decades earlier, at the age of 12. His oldest daughter Stephanie, who had previously appeared with her father on “Sons of Guns,” later told Dr. Phil that he had sexually abused her as well, which led to another sex crime charge.

At the end of his trial, Hayden was found guilty of aggravated rape and forcible rape so he was sentenced to two simultaneous life sentences plus another 40 years in prison, ensuring that he would be spending the rest of his years in jail (via The Advocate). He later received a third life sentence in July 2017, which the assistant district attorney declared, per WAFB, would “satisfy our obligation to the public for public safety to make sure that this defendant stays in jail for the rest of his life.”

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If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN’s National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673). If you or someone you know may be the victim of child abuse, please contact the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child (1-800-422-4453) or contact their live chat services.

“I could get elected twice over the wall,” said Trump. It is one of the few true things he’s said about immigration.

Donald Trump knows how important his words about unauthorized immigrants are.

“Migrant criminals.” “Illegal monster.” “Killers.” “Gang members.” “Poisoning our country.” “Taking your jobs.” “The largest invasion in the history of our country.”

Repetition has been core to Trump’s speech throughout his political career. The Marshall Project used text analysis to identify 13 major claims about immigration in over 350,000 of Trump’s public statements from Factba.se, some of which Trump has made 500 times or more. All of them are untrue or deeply misleading.

Research has shown that as someone hears a statement more times, it feels more true.

Millions of Americans and people worldwide have heard these claims. Here they are, fact-checked by the staff of The Marshall Project.

claimed by trump more than 550 times

For Donald Trump, immigrants bring crime. “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best,” he said during his 2015 campaign announcement. “They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists, and some, I assume, are good people.”

But immigration in the U.S. is strongly associated with lower crime. Looking at data from 200 metropolitan areas, a 2017 study found immigrants are “less likely to offend than native born Americans” and “for property crimes, immigration has a consistently negative effect” on a region’s crime rate. That trend, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) research found, has been consistent all the way back to 1870.

Those findings hold true for undocumented immigrants. Using estimates of undocumented populations, researchers in 2018 found that “undocumented immigration does not increase violence.” Similarly, a study published one year earlier asserted undocumented immigrants have lower rates of drug arrests, overdoses and drunk driving offenses than native-born Americans.

Why do immigrants commit fewer crimes? One theory is that the type of person willing to pack up their entire life to seek prosperity in America is also the type of person unwilling to put all of that at risk through criminal behavior, according to a 2007 NBER paper.

While first-generation immigrants generally display lower levels of criminality, their descendants tend to behave more and more like the greater U.S. population as their families assimilate. “By the second generation, immigrants have simply caught up to their native-born counterparts,” reads a 2014 study.

Trump’s oft-repeated assertion that immigrants make crime worse is shared by around half of Americans, according to a 2023 survey — a number relatively consistent with when Pew started asking the question nearly a quarter-century ago. Only 5% of respondents thought immigrants reduce crime.

Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that millions of immigrants crossing the southern U.S. border were intentionally released from overseas jails, prisons and asylums, especially in countries like Venezuela.

These claims have been routinely debunked by journalists, researchers and fact-checkers. Pressed multiple times, Trump’s campaign has not been able to corroborate the claims, making it difficult to fact-check something that may not exist.

A kernel of truth driving Trump’s claim is that federal officials say they’ve encountered Venezuelan gang members crossing the southern border, though in nowhere near the numbers the former president is pushing. And there’s no evidence they were incarcerated or systematically released, intentionally or otherwise, to infiltrate the U.S.

Criminology and immigration experts, both inside and outside of Venezuela, told El País, the largest daily Spanish-language newspaper in the world, that there’s been no emptying of prisons and mental institutions. Meanwhile, Trump has exaggerated and misattributed the country’s decline in violent crime. A 2023 annual report on violence from an alliance of Venezuelan universities links a more modest 25% decline in violence to peace agreements between organized gangs and fewer opportunities for crime amid a suffering economy. The report does say outward migration of youth gangs temporarily drove up violence in neighboring countries.

Republicans echo Trump’s accusations. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott proclaimed the border a disaster less than five months into the Biden administration. Last month, Abbott amended that proclamation to label Tren de Aragua — the Venezuelan gang at the heart of Trump’s unfounded claim — a terrorist organization.

Donald Trump has claimed that Mexico is flooding the border with drug dealers, criminals and rapists by repeating emotionally powerful anecdotes. Two weeks after his 2015 presidential campaign announcement, Trump latched onto a poster child: Jose Garcia-Zarate, a five-times deported Mexican national who was charged with murder for fatally shooting 32-year-old Kate Steinle on a pier in San Francisco. She died in her father’s arms.

Trump repeatedly invoked Steinle’s killing as part of an immigrant crime wave and said that he is “the only one who can fix it.”

Trump’s focus on Garcia-Zarate is part of a pattern of highlighting undocumented people of color killing or raping White women: Lakin Riley, Jocelyn Nungaray, Rachel Morin and Marilyn Pharis.

While each of these violent crimes is tragic, multiple studies have shown there is no crime wave: Documented and undocumented immigrants commit fewer crimes than native-born Americans. Individual cases of violence can always be found within a population of some 11 million undocumented immigrants, said César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, a professor at the Moritz School of Law.

These individual stories “serve as useful rallying points around which his supporters and members of the right-wing media ecosystem are willing to devote immense amounts of time,” García Hernández said.

And some of Trump’s cases aren’t what he claims they are. A jury acquitted Garcia-Zarate of murder, finding the gun went off by accident and ricocheted off the pier before killing Steinle. Trump called it “a disgraceful verdict” and tweeted, “BUILD THE WALL!”

Steinle’s family did not appreciate the attention. “For Donald Trump, we were just what he needed — beautiful girl, San Francisco, illegal immigrant, arrested a million times, a violent crime and yadda, yadda, yadda,” Liz Sullivan, Steinle’s mother, told the San Francisco Chronicle. “We were the perfect storm for that man.”

Federal law prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections and the available evidence shows attempts to get around the law are vanishingly rare.

State-level reviews of voter rolls have routinely found negligible numbers of noncitizens attempting or successfully registering to vote. For example, earlier this year in Ohio, about 600 noncitizens were found to have registered to vote. Of those, about 138 are believed to have cast a ballot, representing about 0.002% of the state’s registered voters. Similarly, in August, a yearslong review in Texas found about 2,000 “potential” noncitizens with voting histories on Texas voter rolls — or 0.01% of the electorate — but to date, none have been accused of voting illegally.

Republicans have still tried to tighten voter registration laws, specifically the 2024 SAVE Act legislation, which would force states to verify citizenship before adding someone to the voter rolls, an effort that Democrats have stymied to this point.

Another version of Trump’s argument is that pro-immigrant efforts by Democrats pad the census counts of Democrat-majority districts and give the party an advantage in House representation and the Electoral College. Trump ally Elon Musk has repeatedly echoed this claim, falsely claiming that Democrats have gained as many as 20 seats in the House due to illegal immigration.

Multiple analyses have found that illegal immigration is responsible for between 0 and 1 additional Democratic representatives in the House based on the 2020 census. Additionally, at the statewide level, noncitizen arrivals have been concentrated in Republican-leaning states since 2019, according to an analysis by the Cato Institute.

Although there is no single definition for a “sanctuary city,” Donald Trump is broadly referring to states or municipalities that choose not to cooperate with federal immigration authorities to arrest or detain people suspected of violating the country’s immigration laws. It’s a movement that traces its origins back to the 1980s, when churches banded together to shelter refugees fleeing violence in El Salvador and Guatemala. These religious communities offered migrants protection in open defiance of the federal government.

Trump’s claims that these policies lead to increased crime by undocumented immigrants are central to the larger debate over whether the sanctuary movement threatens the safety of the local communities embracing it.

Research shows that there is no link between sanctuary policies and rising crime rates. There are numerous studies that reach the same conclusion using various types of statistical research methods. Instead, researchers find that migrants are less likely to commit crimes than their native-born counterparts.

A 2017 study found that, across 107 U.S. cities, homicide and robbery rates tended to drop as the number of undocumented immigrants from Mexico increased, but only in sanctuary cities. One theory explaining why is that sanctuary policies allow undocumented immigrants to interact with law enforcement without fear of deportation, producing “a spiral of trust that supports police and raises informal social control over crime.”

At rally after rally, Donald Trump asks the crowd if they want to hear the poem “The Snake” and the audience roars. A Marshall Project analysis estimates he has read or referenced the poem at least three dozen times.

The poem is actually the lyrics of a song based on one of Aesop’s fables, in which a tender-hearted woman picks up a frozen snake and warms it. When it’s revived, the snake repays her kindness with a poisonous bite. She asks him why he would kill her and the snake replies, “You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in.” In a speech in South Carolina, Trump told the crowd the lyrics were pertinent in light of “people coming into our country who are going to cause tremendous problems.”

Misinformation can come in the form of outright lies, but also in the less tangible, and more difficult to fact-check, medium of a metaphor. A 2018 academic paper analyzed Trump’s use of metaphor and found he frequently evoked the image of immigrants as animals. “He uses this metaphor to present himself as a hero, as someone who will protect you from these animals,” a study author told Frontline.

Ironically, the song was written by civil rights activist and musician Oscar Brown Jr. Brown, who wrote essays against racism, ran as a progressive candidate in Illinois and for a brief time joined the Communist Party.

In an interview, Brown’s daughter Africa Brown said her father was “never against immigrants” and said, “Trump is the living embodiment of the snake that my father wrote about in that song.”

Donald Trump’s assertions that members of Hamas, ISIS and other extremist groups are entering the country as refugees to conduct acts of terrorism largely don’t hold up to reality. Historically, most perpetrators of terror attacks have been U.S.-born citizens or permanent legal residents from countries not part of the Trump administration’s “Muslim ban,” which restricted travel from seven predominantly Muslim countries.

A 2023 Cato Institute analysis found that the annual odds of an American being murdered in a terrorist attack by a refugee is one in 3.3 billion. The likelihood of being killed in a terrorist attack by any foreigner is one in 4.3 million, and the chance of being killed in a terrorist attack committed by an undocumented immigrant is “zero.”

According to a 2015 Migration Policy Institute article examining nearly 800,000 resettled refugees since Sept. 11, 2001, only three — two Iraqi and one Uzbek — have been arrested for planning terror attacks: Two were to take place abroad, and one was “barely credible.” However, the following year, a Somali refugee in Ohio stabbed 13 people (none of whom died).

After Israel’s invasion and bombardment of Gaza in response to Hamas’ attack that killed almost 1,200 Israelis and took over 250 hostages last year, Trump claimed, without evidence, that the “same people” behind the attack in Israel were entering the U.S. through “our totally open southern border.”

Palestinians in Gaza largely cannot escape the war outside the strip’s borders because of Israel’s land, sea and air blockade. The main U.N. agency settling Palestinian refugees does not refer them to the U.S. The number of Palestinian refugees going through other countries, and referred to the U.S. by nongovernmental organizations, is quite small and subject to rigorous vetting to identify anyone posing “security risks.” According to the State Department, fewer than 600 Palestinians have come to the U.S. as refugees in the last decade. In the 2023 fiscal year, out of more than 60,000 total refugees accepted by the U.S., only 56 were Palestinian.

Donald Trump often repeats that undocumented immigrants put a financial burden on American taxpayers by taking advantage of public welfare benefits. “Illegal immigration costs the United States more than 200 Billion Dollars a year. How was this allowed to happen?” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter, in 2018.

Undocumented immigrants are able to use some public services. Undocumented children can receive public education. And the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), provides items like baby formula to low-income parents, including undocumented ones. However, fear often keeps undocumented immigrants from taking advantage of their benefits. After Trump took office, many undocumented families withdrew from WIC for fear of being detected and deported.

Undocumented immigrants are ineligible for many other public benefits. Undocumented people can pay into Social Security and unemployment insurance, but are unable to access them themselves.

This is in contrast to veterans, who have benefits like the Veterans Health Administration, the GI bill to pay for education and specialized loan assistance programs.

A report from the Cato Institute argued that undocumented immigrants could be a net benefit to public coffers because they tend to pay more in taxes than they consume in government services.

Undocumented people contribute to the American economy by working, earning income and paying sales, income and payroll taxes, including through automatic paycheck withholdings or by using taxpayer identification numbers instead of Social Security numbers. Again, fear and lack of information about the tax preparation process often keeps undocumented people from receiving tax credits they may otherwise qualify for.

According to a study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, undocumented immigrants paid nearly $100 billion in 2022 in federal, state and local taxes.

On the night Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, Donald Trump claimed, if given the chance, she would “allow more than 100 million illegal aliens into our country.”

Although Trump says Democratic politicians like Harris support “open borders,” both Harris’ presidential platform and the Biden administration’s current policies advocate for strong border enforcement.

Since becoming the Democratic nominee, Harris has called for stricter asylum rules and vowed to prosecute drug-smuggling gangs. “The United States is a sovereign nation, and I believe we have a duty to set rules at our border and to enforce them,” Harris said during a recent visit to the border town of Douglas, Arizona.

In some ways, the Biden administration carried over Trump’s immigration policies. Both administrations enforced Title 42, a pandemic-related policy allowing Border Patrol agents to turn away migrants on the grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19.

After Title 42 was lifted last May, the State Department clarified this change “does not mean the border is open.” Instead, immigration rules reverted to Title 8, which imposes harsher penalties for illegal border crossings, such as deportation and a five-year ban on reentry — consequences not enforced under Title 42.

However, border crossings continued to rise and, earlier this year, President Joe Biden issued an executive order stopping the government from processing asylum requests when Border Patrol’s daily number of encounters with “removable noncitizens” averages more than 2,500 over the course of a week. Harris has pledged to reduce that limit to 1,500 per week.

Biden’s order mandates deportation for anyone denied asylum, which exposes them to criminal charges and a long-term ban on reentering the U.S. A month after the order, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported the lowest arrest levels since September 2020, with a 32% decrease in illegal crossings.

Donald Trump often points to the 1950s-era immigration policies of then-President Dwight Eisenhower when discussing his plans for mass deportations of migrants.

“He moved out 1.5 million people and brought them back to where they came from,” Trump said during a 2015 interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity.

Operation Wetback, Eisenhower’s military-style deportation operation targeting undocumented immigrants, whose name comes from an anti-Latino slur, has been an inspiration for the former president and current presidential candidate. “We’re rounding them up in a very humane way, a very nice way,” Trump told “60 Minutes” in 2015. When asked to elaborate, he referred to deportations under the Eisenhower administration.

But despite Trump’s sympathetic characterization of Operation Wetback, historians widely describe it as inhumane. It’s not just that the deportations also ensnared U.S. citizens. Historian Mae Ngai wrote that, in one roundup, 88 migrants died of sunstroke. Ngai also pointed to a congressional investigation comparing conditions on a boat used for deportations to an “eighteenth century slave ship.” Many who survived the voyage were displaced to unfamiliar locations within Mexico.

Historians also contest the number of people deported. After the 1954 initiative, officials reported over a million migrant apprehensions and expulsions. But researcher Kelly Lytle Hernández’s review of records shows apprehensions and expulsions fell closer to 250,000. Hernández argues that the initiative’s results, much touted by officials, were “less than they were portrayed to be.”

Still, she wrote, that “does not render the summer of 1954 meaningless” because it directed greater public attention to the United States’ ongoing push to exert increasing control over its southern border.

During Donald Trump’s presidential run in 2015, he told rallygoers, “They’re taking our jobs.” At the time, the amorphous “they” were people from Mexico. And the jobs were manufacturing jobs.

This election cycle, Trump still says “they” are taking our jobs. This time, the meaning of “they” has evolved to encompass anyone who enters the U.S. illegally, and the jobs are what Trump has repeatedly called “Black jobs” and union jobs, reflecting two groups of potential voters the former president is courting.

When Trump’s original claims surfaced, the Urban Institute noted that while immigrants were increasingly filling low-skilled, low-wage jobs here, the types of jobs were different from jobs native-born Americans did. Immigrant workers, especially those with less education, worked as maids, house cleaners, cooks and in agricultural jobs. Similar native-born workers were cashiers, sales clerks and janitors. Zooming out, a 2007 National Bureau of Economic Research study found that the last large wave of immigration led to a dip in employment for Black people at lower skill levels and, perhaps, higher incarceration rates.

In a September speech, Trump said that “Kamala Harris’ border invasion is also crushing the jobs and wages of African American workers and Hispanic American workers, and also union members.” It’s true that Black workers have largely had lower wages and higher unemployment rates than White workers for decades, due to discrimination and other barriers. In recent years, Black workers and all low-wage workers have seen their paychecks grow, driven by state-level boosts to minimum wage, and wage growth for Black workers from 2019 to 2023 outpaced White workers.

When it comes to union jobs, until the early 2000s, modern labor and manufacturing unions were staunchly anti-immigration but flipped that stance and supported amnesty policies. A widely circulated paper from the Cato Institute found a link between increases in immigration in general — whether legal or not — and a drop in unionization.

Building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border has been a centerpiece of Donald Trump’s immigration policy. He argues it’s effective at curbing illegal border crossings and that Mexico can cover the construction costs.

But the reality of building a wall at the border is more complex and its efficacy is dubious.

According to a Government Accountability Office report, from 2017 through January 2021, the Trump administration added about 450 miles of barriers along the over-1,900-mile expanse. But 81% of the new structures replaced old ones. Government officials and others “noted that the barriers led to various impacts, including to cultural resources, water sources, and endangered species, and from erosion,” the report said. Also, because of the wall, people are more likely to try to cross at more dangerous points, contributing to more injuries and deaths.

Historically, many undocumented immigrants have come into the country legally and overstayed their visas, something a wall wouldn’t prevent. Additionally, people have found ways of circumventing the wall with tunnels and even a hidden rail system.

A review by The Washington Post of Customs and Border Protection records found smuggling gangs had sawed through the wall 3,272 times from 2019 to 2021, usually cutting it “with inexpensive power tools widely available at retail hardware stores.”

Thus far, despite Trump’s promises, Mexico has not covered the nearly $20-million-per-mile expense of building a border wall.

Trump The people that came in, they’re eating the cats… They’re eating the pets of the people that live there. Fact-check There is no evidence to support claims that Haitian migrants are abducting, killing or eating people’s pets in Springfield, Ohio.

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During a recent presidential debate against Kamala Harris, Donald Trump made some shocking claims about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio.

“They’re eating the dogs. The people that came in,” he said. “They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in our country. And it’s a shame.”

Trump’s assertions about migrants eating pets drew further attention to other claims he and his vice presidential running mate, Sen. JD Vance, made: that migrants were in the U.S. illegally and that their presence had led to an increase in both crime and communicable diseases.

In a statement, Springfield spokesperson Karen Graves asserted “that there have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.”

In a post on Springfield’s website, city leaders refuted claims about the city’s Haitian population committing high levels of crime or being undocumented. An August report from health officials in Clark County, where Springfield is the largest city, showed that, excluding COVID, infectious disease case counts in the county remained relatively similar to a decade ago, well before Springfield’s influx of Haitian migrants began.

Police body camera video purportedly showing a Haitian woman eating a cat in Springfield was ultimately determined to be an incident involving a U.S.-born American woman from Canton, Ohio, a nearly three-hour drive from Springfield. The woman was arrested on animal cruelty charges and her attorney requested she undergo a mental health evaluation. A similar story falsely claiming a Haitian migrant had captured a pair of endangered geese has also been debunked.

Similar tales of Haitian migrants eating cats and dogs date back to the 1980s, when it became a popular insult against Haitian American youth in places like South Florida. Haitians are not alone in being targeted with these types of rumors. Other migrant populations, including people from Asia, have been accused of using pets for food.

Kamala Harris: A more positive tone, backs tough policies

Reporters also searched for and reviewed Vice President Kamala Harris’ public statements about immigration. Since the Factba.se database is focused on presidential candidates, data for Harris was limited to the time since she became the Democratic nominee in July, resulting in far fewer statements than what was available for Trump. What statements there were, though, indicated a more positive tone toward immigration and those seeking asylum in the U.S.

“Innocent people.” “Children who had fled incredible violence.” “Displaced.” “Dreamers.” “Families.” “Muslim brothers and sisters.” “We’re all immigrants.”

While Harris frequently references her record of prosecuting transnational gangs, drug cartels and human traffickers, she also supports the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA), and a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants: “Let’s bring all of these folks out of the shadows into the sunlight, and be true to the value that we have as a country.”

Still, as vice president, she has expressed what experts call the party’s toughest approach to immigration in a generation. Though these measures fall far short of Trump’s extreme proposals like mass deportations, they include increased border enforcement, raising the bar for asylum, and expanding immigrant detention centers.

Harris also often cites a tough border security bill she supported. The bill would have increased funding for border personnel, shut loopholes related to the asylum system, reduced the ability of migrants to temporarily enter the country, and given more discretion to the president to close down the border. Trump derailed the bill, in part because its passage would “make things much better for the opposing side.”

“Our administration worked on the most significant border security bill in decades. Some of the most conservative Republicans in Washington, D.C., supported the bill. Even the Border Patrol endorsed it. It was all set to pass. But at the last minute, Trump directed his allies in the Senate to vote it down,” said Harris.

The harm of repeating the false link between immigration and crime

Even recognizing that a statement is false becomes more difficult when someone repeatedly hears false information.

In what cognitive scientists call the “illusory truth effect,” the more someone hears a statement, the more likely they are to believe it. A leading explanation for the phenomenon is that repetition makes information easier to process, making it seem more truthful. A 2021 study found that even as the greatest increase in perceived truth happened when subjects heard a piece of information a second time, subjects reported perceptions of truth increased with repetition up to nine times, and didn’t decrease with further repetition.

Falsely linking immigration and crime has resulted in real policies. These include Secure Communities, a Department of Homeland Security Program that flags immigrants in local law enforcement custody for deportation, and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s 287(g) program, which delegates some immigration enforcement tasks to local law enforcement.

“None of them delivered the increased public safety that was promised,” said Charis Kubrin, a professor of criminology, law and society at the University of California, Irvine. “Why? Because immigrant criminality was not a problem to begin with.”

According to Kubrin, this focus shifts attention and resources from other public safety concerns such as mass shootings, violence against women and crimes with broad economic impact like fraud, corporate negligence and failure in regulation.

Discrediting election results

Claims about immigration and crime can also strengthen attempts to discredit the results of the 2020 general election, and potentially, the 2024 general election.

Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia accepted the 2020 election results while raising concerns about noncitizen voting. While campaigning for Trump during the 2024 election, Youngkin highlighted his state’s purging of 6,303 names recorded as noncitizens from voter rolls. Election administrators say these registrations are often the result of errors when filling out paperwork and there are no records of noncitizens casting votes, and few instances of illegal voting in general. Youngkin’s registration removals now face a federal lawsuit.

In Texas, the right-wing group True the Vote has led a campaign to challenge voter registrations in the state, leaving election officials to process thousands of challenges while ensuring that voters aren’t improperly removed. While most of the Texas challenges are over the residence of the voter, the group behind the challenges has stoked claims of noncitizen voting.

True the Vote, and other groups have also challenged registrations in states like Arizona, California, Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania. The challenges are often based on name-matching software that has known issues with data quality and usability. This comes after activists pushed Republican-led states to leave the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a partnership of state election administrators that many regarded as the most rigorous system for helping states maintain up-to-date voter rolls.

Normalizing hardline policies

Scholars have noted the cumulative effect of scapegoating immigration. Trump’s rhetoric helped shift the window of acceptable language, and policy, toward immigrants, making controversial practices like family separation or mass deportation more palatable, Laura Finley and Luigi Esposito, sociology and criminology professors at Barry University, wrote in a 2020 article.

In 2018, researchers reviewed available studies on policies that limited local cooperation with immigration enforcement, often referred to as “sanctuary” policies, and found there was little evidence that linked such policies, or immigration overall, to more crime. The researchers concluded that linking immigration and crime allows xenophobia and racism to be expressed under a “color-blind” concept of “rule-of-law.”

Polls show more Americans favor fewer immigrants and more restrictions on immigration. A July Gallup poll found that 55% of respondents wanted a decrease in immigration. The poll, which has asked about immigration levels since 1965, has not found such a high level of those who wanted decreased immigration in nearly two decades. Other 2024 polls also show support for tougher border measures and that many Americans find immigration to be a key problem facing the country.

The same poll shows broad support for tougher immigration measures. A majority of those polled support temporarily halting migrants from seeking asylum at the Southwest border, hiring more border patrol agents and expanding walls at that border. Nearly half support deporting all immigrants in the country illegally. Despite this, large majorities also supported some path to citizenship for those in the country without authorization. Support for the restrictive measures rose from five years ago while support for pathways to citizenship for undocumented immigrants fell.

Polling also shows support for tougher state immigration policy. An August poll found 63% of polled Arizona voters supported Proposition 314, a ballot measure before voters in the November 2024 election. The measure would make crossing the border with Mexico outside ports of entry a state crime, allowing state and local police to arrest migrants for the new crime.

The effects of repeating a lie

Beyond Trump, there is a growing partisan divide around the way politicians talk about immigrants. In a 2022 article published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers describe how they analyzed over 200,000 U.S. congressional speeches and 5,000 presidential communications on immigration since the late 1800s. While there has been a general trend toward more positive language on immigration, Republicans are more likely than Democrats to use words like “crime,” “legality” and “threat” and to use dehumanizing language, the researchers found.

Politicians across parties and nations continue to reap rewards by blaming immigrants for social problems. “Politicians, from far-right populists to centrist liberals, use anti-immigrant narratives to deflect attention from deeper systematic issues such as affordable housing shortages, economic inequalities and failing public services,” Yvonne Su, director of the Centre for Refugee Studies at York University, wrote last month.

For Alex Piquero, a University of Miami criminology professor and former director of the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, the body of research is “absolutely clear” that immigrants are not responsible for increases in crime.

But beliefs to the contrary are persistent. “What we have here is a mismatch between what the data show and what the political rhetoric says,“ Piquero said.

Trump seems confident in the power of repetition. “I could get elected twice over the wall,” he said in a speech at CPAC in 2020. That didn’t happen that year. Will it happen in November?

This story was updated to omit the minimum number that some claims are repeated.

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Learn about how The Marshall Project is covering the 2024 election’s criminal justice and immigration issues across the U.S. and in our local news teams’ cities.

The following article includes discussion of sexual assault, alcohol and other substance abuse, and child abuse.

Over the past few years, culture has taken a long, hard look at the criminal justice system, calling for reform from every corner of society. Documentaries like “Making a Murderer” became massive hits by examining potential cases of wrongful incarceration. Kim Kardashian has pursued a career in law to help free people who should not be in prison. Rapper Drakeo the Ruler released an urgently political album in 2020 to great critical acclaim, having recorded it entirely over a prison phone system, because he was still sitting in lockup despite being acquitted of the charges he was originally sent away for. And, of course, the Black Lives Matter movement reached new heights in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd, becoming perhaps the largest sustained social justice protest in American history, per The New York Times.

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All of these aspects of culture make one thing clear: the justice system isn’t always applied equally. That’s especially evident in the case of celebs who have gone to jail, many of whom found themselves on the receiving end of some leniency not always afforded to those who don’t have the same level of fame. Thanks to numerous factors, including successful appeals, overcrowding in the jail systems of Los Angeles, good behavior, medical issues, and even the intervention of higher courts, many stars have had their prison sentences cut short. Read on for a roundup of some of the biggest offenders and the details surrounding their early releases.

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Well, here we are at the end of another long and busy year for Essex crime. 2023 has had no shortage of outrageous court stories in our country, from the likes of reality TV stars to stone-cold killers. The likes of Chelmsford, Basildon, Ipswich and Snaresbrook Crown Courts have been on full throttle in the last 12 months, with notable cases also being heard at the Old Bailey.

From a killer wielding a crossbow, to an arsonist starting nearly 30 fires, to a revenge porn case that took the country by storm, Essex has been the epicentre of some of the most brazen, shocking and downright bizarre crimes. In one month, one robber decided to target his own former bakery, whilst an organised crime boss was dragged back to the UK from Thailand in another month.

There have, sadly, been no shortage of killers this year either, with multiple homicide cases taking place in Essex, with some still to be heard in the courts. We have also seen “ruthless” gangs take over whole neighbourhoods using fear and violence, even getting children to deal drugs for them.

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Thankfully in these cases, lengthy jail terms have been passed, and these people are now safely where they belong, behind bars. This list of those locked up this year is enormous, but we hope their stories are informative for the people of Essex – and a deterrent on others considering a life of crime.

January

The man who tried to brutally murder his ex in a jealous rage

(Image: Essex Police)

Essex mum Alex Alam was viciously attacked by former Dreamboys director David Richards at her home in Stock in April last year. Ms Alam, who had previously been in a relationship with the 42-year-old, was assaulted, tied up and slashed with an axe by Richards.

He had stalked her and waited for hours outside her home before attacking Ms Alam when she let her dogs out. Her injuries caused her to have more than 100 stitches.

Richards, of no fixed abode, was found guilty of attempted murder on November 15 following a trial at Chelmsford Crown Court. He denied attempting to kill Ms Alam but a jury convicted him within three hours. He was jailed for 27 years. In March this year, Richards died in prison.

The son who dragged his mother into the world of drug dealing

(Image: Essex Police)

Tye Cook became involved in a huge operation to shift £750,000 worth of cocaine across Essex and beyond after “foolishly” taking a loan from a friend of a friend and then “dragging his mother into the criminal justice system”.

Cook, 30, and his mother Jane Cook, 50, both of Worcester Drive, Rayleigh, were arrested in May last year after Tye was pulled over on the A127 near the town along with another man. The van was searched by police and 7.3 kilograms of cocaine were discovered in four blocks inside a compartment.

Phone messages revealed that Jane had told Tye to get rid of the drugs but was “calm” about the situation and that if she were to remove it, she “wanted £100” for the trouble.

Ms Harper also detailed to the court the circumstances in which Tye had been investigated, as he had previously been followed by officers and observed to carry out suspected drug deals in secluded areas of Essex and also near the A1 in Peterborough. The duo were jailed for a collective nine years.

The cocaine dealer who tried to smuggle drugs inside himself to Iceland

(Image: SWNS/Organised Crime Partnership)

Bradley Pryer, 24, and fellow crook Cain Adams, 23, of Grays and Stanford-le-Hope, were caught by a sniffer dog with more than £6,000 of coke hidden inside themselves.

The pair were arrested at Stansted Airport in April last year, before they boarded a flight to Reykjavik. They were sniffed out by a drugs dog and found to be carrying cocaine – which they had hidden in their own bodies.

The cocaine described as “high purity” had a combined estimated UK street value of £6,300, but would have been worth around three times that in Iceland. Messages from Pryer indicated an intention to send similar quantities of cocaine a week to Iceland by using similar drug mules. He was jailed for 12 years.

The pervert who used secret water bottle cameras to film women and children

(Image: Met Police)

Dean Gordon, 41, had numerous hidden cameras on objects such as bottles and coat hooks to secretly record people in states of undress.

Gordon, 41, of Rosewood Court, Leytonstone, was jailed at Snaresbrook Crown Court on Monday (January 16) having previously admitted three counts of making and ten counts of taking indecent photographs of children; possession of extreme pornographic images and possession of a prohibited image of a child.

The court heard that Gordon covertly recorded the children naked or semi-naked. In one case, he sexually abused a young girl whilst she lay asleep and recorded himself abusing her. He also covertly recorded multiple women naked as well. He was jailed for six years and eight months.

The ‘dangerous and manipulative’ child rapist

(Image: Essex Police)

Kevin Smith, 57, was found guilty of multiple sex offences against young girls, including nine counts of rape against a child under 14.

Smith, of Kimpton Close, Ongar, will serve a further five years on licence. An investigation into the predator was first launched last year when multiple victims came forward to report that they had been abused several years ago. Smith was arrested and charged and, following a two-week trial, he was found guilty of nine counts of rape against a child under 14 and four counts of indecent assault.

Three of his victims, who cannot be named for legal reasons, bravely spoke about their experiences and the “trauma” that Smith left. One of them said: “It’s taken me a lot of time and strength to speak about this, but the result has made me feel strong enough to do so.”

The man and woman who attacked a person in their own home

(Image: Essex Police)

Gary Haliben, 39, and Sarah Hooks, 42, have been sent to prison for an aggravated burglary in Chelmsford on January 30, 2021. The pair forced their way into the victim’s home two years ago. Arriving at around 10pm, they pushed the victim, in his 30s, inside when the door was opened.

Over a two-hour period, the victim was repeatedly assaulted and threatened by Haliben, who was brandishing a knife and demanding cash. The pair took turns to search the property hoping to find large amounts of cash – instead, they fled with £40 from the victim’s wallet and some personal possessions. They were jailed for a combined 12 years.

The young woman who killed a pensioner and fled

(Image: Essex Police)

Hivda Altuntop killed 73-year-old Penelope Ann Coggan in a crash in Great Oakley in April 2021. Altuntop, 21, was convicted in November at Chelmsford Crown Court.

Furthermore, she was found guilty of another eight offences relating to two incidents that occurred on March 18 and April 24 last year. Altuntop was driving a silver Vauxhall Astra when she crashed into pedestrian Penelope in Harwich Road on April 24, 2021.

Sadly, Mrs Coggan was pronounced dead at the scene, but Altuntop, of High Street, Harwich, failed to stop at the scene. She was however detained after she crashed the car further along Harwich Road.

When arrested she was found to be in possession of cannabis and a small kitchen knife. It was also discovered she did not own the car she was driving. She was jailed for seven years.

The ‘gun nut’ who had his own weapons workshop

(Image: Met Police)

Raymond Frederick Nugent, 73, was caught after a tip-off from the National Crime Agency (NCA) led detectives to discover his enormous cache of weapons which he’d amassed over many years.

Nugent, of Coltishall Road, Hornchurch, was sentenced at Snaresbrook Crown Court on Friday (January 20) to seven-and-a-half years in prison, having been found guilty at an earlier hearing of 45 firearms offences.

The NCA alerted the Met after intelligence revealed that Nugent had imported a blank-firing weapon from the Czech Republic. Nugent was arrested and taken for an interview at an east London police station as police continued to search the address.

Even from initial inspection, it was apparent to specialist officers at the scene that he was in possession of viable firearms. They were seized and taken for examination.

Incredibly, several of these were items Nugent had made from scratch himself at his workshop, using drills and vices to create weapons fully capable of firing. An expert pointed out during the trial that one weapon Nugent had produced was in fact 25 per cent more powerful than a factory-produced firearm of similar calibre and style. He was jailed for seven and a half years.

The killer who murdered a man in his hostel room

(Image: Met Police)

Mahi Noor, 25, of Lea Bridge Road, Leyton was found guilty on Tuesday, January 24 following a trial at the Old Bailey of the murder of 32-year-old Abdi Khadar Adan.

His accomplice, Kieran McHugh, 31, also of Lea Bridge Road, Leyton pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to perverting the course of justice and was given a 20 month sentence. He was acquitted of murder and manslaughter. McHugh has been and will continue to be detained at a specialist facility under the Mental Health Act.

The court heard that on August 22, 2021, Abdi went into Noor’s bedroom, only to come out six and a half minutes later bleeding profusely after being stabbed through the neck. He was rushed to hospital, but despite the best efforts from the Metropolitan Police, London Ambulance Service and the London Air Ambulance, he was sadly pronounced dead shortly after arriving.

Meanwhile, Noor and McHugh made a sharp exit from the hostel and disposed of the murder weapon – in a futile bid to hide it from the police. Noor was later jailed for a minimum of 20 years.

The gang who spread a web of cocaine and violence through Colchester

(Image: Essex Police)

Five members of a dangerous crime group have been jailed for a combined total of almost 40 years for their involvement in the supply of Class A drugs in Colchester and serious violence in the city. Stephen Ford, Kian Rulten, Jack Tyrer, Luke Welham and Jake Goodspeed were all sentenced on Wednesday (January 25).

Ford and Rulten ran the F&K line in Colchester between April 2021 and July 2022, being responsible for a significant supply of cocaine through two marketing phone numbers. Over that period of time, thousands of drug deals were made and an absolute minimum of 1.5kg of cocaine was sold for an absolute minimum of £100,000.

Over the course of the investigation, officers were able to overwhelmingly prove that all five men were part of the operation. Although the line was overseen by Ford and Rulten, Welham and Goodspeed were both responsible at different times for holding the line. Tyrer was used as a runner. They were all sentenced for their roles in the operation earlier this month.

The father and son who murdered a man they robbed

(Image: Met Police)

Ernesto Elliott, 45, of Parquier Road, and Nico Elliott, 23, of Walthamstow, were found guilty by a jury after a trial at the Old Bailey.

The court heard the father and son were involved in the fatal stabbing of 35-year-old Nathaniel Eyewu-Ago, who chased them to Barge Walk on June 2 last year, after they robbed drugs and cash from him. As the incident took place in the middle of the day, there were a number of witnesses, including an off-duty police officer, PC Luke Dowling, who called 999.

PC Dowling was commended by the judge for his work in maintaining the forensic exhibits safe at the scene and his efforts in giving first aid to Nathaniel, who despite the best efforts of the officer and paramedics, died in hospital on June 8 as the result of a fatal stab injury to his heart. Ernesto and Nico Elliott were arrested later the same day on suspicion of murder. They were later convicted and sentenced to 26 and 12 years in jail at least.

February

The attacker who sexually assaulted women on buses in Essex

(Image: EssexLive)

Sinan Adali, 31, was sentenced to 35 weeks imprisonment at Thames Magistrates on February 22. Adali sexually assaulted women as they travelled alone on buses in Walthamstow as well as Camden and Hackney between November 2022 and January 2023.

He sexually assaulted one woman for 30 minutes whilst she slept on a bus. The 31-year-old, of no fixed abode, was caught after detectives used CCTV to link him to the offences. He was arrested while waiting for a bus on February 3.

The vile paedophile who shared his abuse on the dark web

(Image: NCA)

21-year-old Keenan Ridgway who took 318 images and videos of himself sexually abusing a child and then uploaded them into the dark web has been jailed, three years after Essex Police first tried to track him down. The force found videos of the depraved assaults in early 2020, but couldn’t trace the offender’s identity.

Ridgway took hundreds of images of him abusing his victim on two separate occasions in Lincolnshire, starting in 2018, which were shared online. Ridgway, of Croft Bank, Skegness, was later found with around 30,000 indecent and prohibited images on his devices and was found to have distributed more than 450, including those of babies.

The Essex Police investigation was closed when officers failed to trace him, but the National Crime Agency (NCA) resumed enquiries after Interpol flagged six images of the victim being sexually assaulted.

The images could be traced back to Lincolnshire and had been distributed to someone in Miami, in the US. He was later jailed for six years and three months.

The ‘relentless’ fraudster who stole £2.3million

Conman Clint Canning and his wife Eleise Wallace lived a “lavish lifestyle” in their Essex farmhouse, enjoying luxury holidays and buying expensive watches, Southwark Crown Court heard.

Now they face losing the £1m farmhouse near Chelmsford the court heard, as it is about to be repossessed. Canning, 45, convinced his victims to place bets on company share or asset prices with the false promise of big returns if they guessed correctly.

The practice is now illegal but was allowed at the time of the 2014 fraud. Canning, originally from Dublin, was convicted of conspiracy to defraud while Wallace, 37, was acquitted of that charge but found guilty of laundering £900,000 of the ill-gotten gains. Canning was jailed for nine years.

The gang of people smugglers including a mum and her daughter

(Image: Home Office/PA Media)

A gang of people smugglers – four women and three men – aged between 24 and 51, smuggled at least 14 migrants from the Middle East to the UK, including people from Palestine, Kuwait and Syria.

Their crimes started to unravel when Border Force officers stopped 29-year-old Firdos Ahmed, of Feltham, London, at Harwich Port in Essex. She was carrying a French ID card in someone else’s name.

A search of her phone found a collection of fraudulent documents and messages with other members of the gang, including her mother, 51-year-old Zarina Abdulla, from Leicester.

The members of the British/Palestinian network undertook people smuggling activities between December 2017 and December 2018. Read the full sentencing details here.

The con artist who stole £13,000 from a woman in a romance fraud

(Image: Mark Lundrigan )

Emmanuel Scotts’ victim met him on the dating website Ourtime. He claimed to be trader on the financial markets and recently divorced. Scotts showered Vicky – not her real name -with attention and even came to her house and had sex with her before he started asking for money.

In reality, Scotts was married and Vicky was just one of several women he was exploiting. In November 2022, Scotts, 55, was sentenced to 12 years in prison after being found guilty of defrauding four women out of more than £320,000 following an investigation by City of London Police.

One victim lost £232,000. Last year, 191 cases of romance fraud were reported across Essex, and Action Fraud reported an estimated £88 million was lost to romance fraudsters in the UK with £1.6 million of this from victims in this county.

The ‘despicable’ man who sexually abused two girls

(Image: Essex Police/EssexLive)

Patrick Wakefield was described as “despicable” by the police officer who investigated him after he “forced” his victims to relive their abuse and give evidence at his trial.

Wakefield, 51, appeared at Basildon Crown Court last week (February 14) and was sentenced for 13 sexual offences in connection to two victims over a six year period. Wakefield received ten years in prison for the rape of one girl and a further three years for causing/inciting another girl under 13 to engage in sexual activity.

Essex Police received a report of sexual abuse of a child in December 2020 and an investigation was launched. Wakefield was arrested that same month and following this concerns arose about another child victim after his digital devices were examined. Read the full sentencing details here.

The thug that caused a brain injury with a single punch

(Image: Essex Police)

Frederico Andrade-Dos Santos fled the scene after causing serious injuries to his victim in Colchester last year.

On the evening of January 7, 2022, the 21-year-old was with friends, having left a nightclub in Colchester, when he became involved in an unprovoked assault on a man in the town. Andrade-Dos Santos ran over to the victim and with one punch, knocked him to the ground.

The victim was knocked unconscious after he struck his head on the raised kerb. Andrade-Dos Santos and his friends ran off. Nearby security staff heard the disturbance and rushed to provide first aid before the victim, 30s, was taken to hospital where it was confirmed he had a bleed on the brain. Read the full sentencing details here.

The men who tried to kidnap school girls

(Image: Kent Police)

On November 6, 2018, Jordan Godfrey from Romford, and Brett Parker from Dagenham, were travelling in a stolen Ford Focus in Swanley when they approached several females in quick succession, under the pretence they were seeking directions.

The first woman was approached at 8am. She was offered a lift when the car stopped next to her but walked away. Minutes later, the vehicle pulled up next to a teenage girl walking on London Road, Swanley. The child was asked to get into the car to give directions and when she refused was followed. The men only drove away after she pretended to make a phone call.

At around 8.30am, a woman heading towards the train station was then targeted. After the car blocked a footpath in front of her, Parker grabbed her arm and tried to force her inside. The victim resisted and managed to make her way to safety.

Godfrey and Parker then drove to a nearby private car park, where they collided with a stationary vehicle. The men saw two women trying to take photos on their phones of the damage and began screaming at them to hand over the devices.

Godfrey put his arm around the neck of one of the women and dragged her to the floor. They eventually fled and the stolen Ford Focus was later abandoned in Maidstone and recovered by police.

Forensic examination of the vehicle and clothing it contained identified both offenders. Parker’s DNA was also recovered from the coat belonging to the victim he had tried to pull into their car. Read the full sentencing details here.

The killer who murdered a woman and plundered her wealth

(Image: PA)

Former supermarket worker Serkan Kaygusuz, 42, befriended 70-year-old Norma Girolami at a local swimming pool and took advantage of her generosity to get his hands on £300,000.

When Ms Girolami turned off the “money tap”, he set about killing her, concealing the body and helping himself to her remaining wealth, the Old Bailey was told on Wednesday (February 22). Kaygusuz, who claimed unemployment benefits and lived with his parents in Crouch End, north London, spent her money on a luxury lifestyle well beyond his means.

He had a £20,000 car, designer clothes, a new games console, and visited sex workers. He also went on a trip to Turkey for cosmetic procedures on his nose and teeth and a hair transplant while hoarding around £120,000 in the bank.

Kaygusuz declined to give evidence in his trial and was found guilty of murdering Ms Girolami in her Highgate home after a jury deliberated for just 19 minutes. Ms Girolami had last been seen alive in Leigh-on-Sea when she took a day trip there from London.

March

The reality TV star who uploaded intimate videos without consent

(Image: Essex Police)

Stephen Bear uploaded a video of himself having sex with Georgia Harrison, known for her appearances on Love Island and The Only Way Is Essex, in the garden of his home to his OnlyFans account in November 2020, and also shared the video on WhatsApp. The footage had been captured on Bear’s CCTV cameras, but Georgia never consented to it being shared.

Bear, 33 of Bryony Close, Loughton appeared at Chelmsford Crown Court on March 3 where he was sentenced after being found guilty of voyeurism, disclosing private sexual images without consent and breach of bail conditions.

Judge Christopher Morgan has sentenced Bear to 21 months in jail. The judge said prison was the “only appropriate” punishment for his actions. Bear will also be subjected to notification requirements often known as being placed on the Sex Offenders Register.

Bear denied two counts of disclosing private sexual images or films with intent to cause distress and one count of voyeurism. But at Chelmsford Crown Court the jury of nine men and three women convicted him of all counts after a week-long trial.

The shoplifter banned from stores in two towns

(Image: Essex Police)

Kyle Sherwin, 36, previously committed offences while on bail as well as during the term of a suspended sentence.

The 12-month suspended prison sentence was activated at the hearing on February 24 and Sherwin, of Dowland Close, Stanford le Hope, received a further 16-month prison sentence for nine thefts, totalling £667.50, from the Co-op in Stanford le Hope High Street in January 2023.

He was also issued with a five-year criminal behaviour order. This forbids Sherwin to enter the Co-op in Stanford le Hope High Street and Tesco Express stores in King Street, Stanford le Hope, and the Kursaal, Eastern Esplanade, Southend.

The man who attacked a stranger from behind and left him unconscious

(Image: Essex Police)

Darryl Bright, 38, attacked his victim, a man in his 50s, from behind as he was walking up Duke Street towards Rainsford Road in Chelmsford to meet his wife at around 9.50pm on November 15 when he walked past a group of people outside Home Foods.

Bright was part of the group and attacked the victim. He punched the man in the back of his head, causing him to fall to the floor unconscious. On regaining consciousness, the victim called his wife who, on seeing his injuries, took him to hospital. The victim was left with amnesia and a fractured thumb.

Bright admitted causing GBH without intent and was jailed for two years and three months.

The ‘cowardly’ child rapist who was caught after his victim bravely spoke out

(Image: Essex Police)

Ian McCarthy has spent the last year using an “absurd” story to claim his victim was lying, because he “couldn’t face the consequences” of his actions, a court has heard.

Judge Samantha Cohen blasted McCarthy for his “cowardice” as she jailed him for more than a decade for a string of crimes against the girl. McCarthy, 43, of South Ockendon, was arrested following allegations made against him at the end of 2020. His 15-count indictment included five counts of raping a child, plus sexual assault, inciting a child to watch sexual activity and sexual activity with a child.

McCarthy initially confessed his crimes to police when he was arrested, but later tried to retract them, claiming he “didn’t know” why he said it. McCarthy later changed his pleas to guilty in January this year and was sentenced at Basildon Crown Court on March 8 where he was given a 19 year sentence.

Drug dealers who ran the ‘Chadwell cartel’ after being ‘inspired by Kray twins’

(Image: National Crime Agency)

Robert Smith, 37, headed an organised crime group which supplied cocaine and cannabis to the Chadwell St Mary and Grays areas, using Ismet Salih, 33, and Lee Twigg as his trusted seconds in command.

Smith and Salih, both from Grays, referred to themselves as the ‘Chadwell Cartel’ in EncroChat exchanges. Messages between the pair also revealed their aspirations of becoming gangsters like Ronnie and Reggie Kray.

Smith used the handle ‘demonfern’ to source the cocaine from a Dubai-based seller, who went by ‘blacknarco’ and ‘darkestnarco’. Salih and associate Lee Twigg collected the cocaine from Smiths’s suppliers in the UK and then stored and distributed the drugs for him. They also ensured cash from the sale of the drugs made it back to the suppliers.

Smith and Salih were charged with drugs and money laundering offences and admitted these at Basildon Crown Court. They were jailed for 16-and-a-half years and nine years respectively at the same court on March 8.

The drugged up driver who killed a beloved young woman

(Image: Met Police)

Ashley Loveday killed a 21-year-old woman driving the wrong way along the A13 in Dagenham. Loveday, 39, of Avondale Road, was sentenced at the Old Bailey on March 9 after he previously admitted causing death by dangerous driving, causing serious injury by dangerous driving and aggravated vehicle taking.

The crash happened at around 2.35am on November 25, 2022, after a van, which Loveday was driving in the wrong direction on the Essex-bound carriageway, collided with a black Toyota Prius.

The van had failed to stop for Essex Police officers prior to entering the A13. Essex officers had followed the vehicle using the correct side of the road. Grace Payne, aged 21 and from the Upminster area, was a passenger in the Prius. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

Loveday later admitted causing death by dangerous driving and was jailed for 14 years.

The killer who stabbed his ex’s new partner while they slept

(Image: Essex Police)

Marek Hecko, 26 of Rookes Crescent, Chelmsford was convicted of murdering 44-year-old Adrian Ellingford by a jury in less than a day.

Mr Ellingford was stabbed in a property in Nelson Grove, Chelmsford on July 25 last year. He had been asleep with his partner while Hecko infiltrated the home with a knife from his own kitchen and stabbed him twice. He tragically died from his injuries.

Chelmsford Crown Court previously heard how Hecko had been in a relationship with Mr Ellingford’s partner beforehand but she had broken it off. However, he remained obsessed with her, arriving at her workplace and home uninvited and sending her lengthy messages and videos.

Things came to a head that night when Hecko bought two bottles of wine and walked to the home, which was captured on CCTV. He left one bottle at the scene having drunk the alcohol, and then also left the handle of the knife, with his DNA on it, in the hallway, as it had snapped off when he stabbed Mr Ellingford.

Hecko was given a life sentence for the murder by Judge Christopher Morgan after his conviction. He put forward no mitigation and still maintains his innocence.

The man who lured his ex to a bank and stabbed her 18 times

(Image: Met Police)

Robin Ibrahim, 28, of Brock Place, Tower Hamlets, was sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment at Basildon Crown Court on Friday, March 10.

He pleaded guilty to attempted murder and possession of an offensive weapon in a public place at the same court on Thursday, September 22. The court heard that on June 28, 2021, Ibrahim asked his ex-girlfriend to meet him outside a bank in High Street, Hornchurch, so he could give her the substantial amount of money he owed her.

They had a conversation outside the bank, having missed its opening time, before the victim and Ibrahim made their way back to a nearby car park in Billet Lane where her vehicle was parked in order for him to pass over the promised money. When they got to the car park, Ibrahim grabbed a knife from his bag and attacked the victim as she fell to the side of her car.

He stabbed her 18 times before he was stopped by members of the public who bravely intervened. Officers swiftly attended and arrested Ibrahim on suspicion of attempted murder and possession of an offensive weapon.

The shoplifter caught hiding behind a sofa

(Image: Essex Police)

Louis O’Brien, of Orwell Road, Clacton, will spend eight weeks in prison. The 30-year-old was described as a prolific offender in Colchester Magistrates Court. O’Brien was arrested last month after police were called to a disturbance at an address in Potter Close, Clacton.

O’Brien was found hiding behind a sofa, Essex Police says. Prior checks revealed he was wanted for breaching a suspended sentence imposed on November 10 last year. At a hearing on March 13, O’Bried admitted eight counts of theft from a shop. He was jailed for eight weeks and issued with a two-year criminal behaviour order.

This forbids O’Brien from entering Co-operative stores in Old Road and Coopers Lane in Clacton and Frinton Road, Holland-on-Sea; and the Boots store in Pier Avenue, Clacton, on his release from prison.

The rapist who attacked a woman then ‘tried to cover it up’

(Image: Essex Police)

Shelton Tapfumaneyi, 24, from Oxford was initially charged with rape and released on bail in 2019 after a woman reported that she had been raped following a night out in Manchester city centre.

He then caught the attention of Essex Police in 2020 when a woman reported that she was raped in Basildon. Tapfumaneyi was subsequently arrested on August 24 and then charged with one count of rape against a woman over 16.

But it was decided to join both charges together for the trial and he was found guilty of the offences. He appeared at Basildon Crown Court on March 10 where he was given the 13 years jail term, which he must serve at least two-thirds of the sentence.

The thief who is banned from Lakeside Shopping Centre

(Image: Essex Police)

Callum Watt has been banned from taking his bike to an Essex shopping centre – after using it to flee after stealing from a shop. The 21-year-old targeted the House of Fraser store at Lakeside four times between September 2022 and February 2023.

Watt left his bike near the store entrance before grabbing designer jackets and t-shirts from a rail in the shop. He then went back out to his bike and pedalled away. He also stole items including a bank card from a Mercedes A180, with the card then used at BP Orsett South. A few days later he stole four cans of lager from the petrol station at around 5.35am.

Watt, of Goodman Road, Grays, later returned to the shop to steal more lager that afternoon. His crime spree came to an end a short time later when he was arrested that evening in Romford.

The ‘evil’ paedophile who accused his victim of lying

(Image: Essex Police)

John Bliss, from Gwent, Wales, was sentenced at Chelmsford Crown Court on March 16 after he was found guilty of seven sexual offences against a child.

An investigation was launched in 2020 when a girl contacted Essex Police and reported multiple sexual assaults in Harlow. Bliss, 43 was arrested and continuously denied the offences.

He was then charged with rape, five counts of sexual assault, and causing a child to engage in sexual activity. He was also issued with a lifelong Sexual Harm Prevention Order in addition to his sentence.

The shoplifter who ‘intimidated’ staff

(Image: Essex Police)

James Coleman caused shop staff to “feel fear and intimidation” has been jailed and banned from entering some Co-op stores in south Essex. Coleman has been forbidden from entering the chain’s shops in Southend and Westcliff after admitting a string of thefts.

At Southend Magistrates’ Court on March 13, Coleman admitted 15 counts of theft from a shop involving more than £1,600 of goods. He failed to appear at court on February 27 to answer nine charges and a warrant for his arrest was issued.

Six days later the 34-year-old was spotted by police in Southend High Street where he was arrested by officers. He was subsequently charged with another six thefts. Coleman, of York Road, Southend, was jailed for a total of 28 weeks, after magistrates were told he was a prolific offender.

Coleman was also ordered to pay £914.40 compensation and issued with a two-year criminal behaviour order. This forbids him to enter Co-op stores in Sutton Road, Southend, and London Road, Westcliff.

The rapist who ‘preyed upon’ his victim after taking her home from a club

(Image: Essex Police)

Vile rapist Miridon Bera who “preyed upon” a woman at a club before luring her back to his flat to attack her has been jailed. Bera had targeted a woman at a club in Colchester in July 2019. Evidence showed the 30-year-old then led her back to his flat where he attacked her.

At the conclusion of his trial at Ipswich Crown Court in February, the jury found Bera, of Talavera Crescent, guilty of one count of rape. On March 21 he was sentenced at the same court to eight-and-a-half years in jail. The conviction follows an investigation by Essex Police’s Adult Sexual Abuse Investigation (ASAIT) team and the Centre for Action on Rape and Abuse in Essex (CARA).

The ‘callous’ killer who murdered his mum’s neighbour and left her body for days

(Image: Met Police)

Jamie Cook, 31 admitted murdering 67-year-old Hilary Round along with two charges of fraud. Snaresbrook Crown Court heard an investigation was launched after police were called at 1.29pm on October 12 last year following concerns for the welfare of a resident at an address in De Vere Gardens, Ilford. Hilary’s body was found at the address after police forced entry.

Cook was arrested a short time later at an address in Horns Road, Ilford, where Hilary’s bank card was found. The Met Police had been called to De Vere Gardens after Cook had rung his mother, who lived in the flat below Hilary, and told her that he had killed her neighbour “three or four days ago”.

A post mortem established the cause of death as compression to the neck. Homicide detectives analysed CCTV and identified Cook using Hilary’s bank card in supermarkets and fast food outlets on 6 and 7 October. A dressing gown cord found in his mother’s flat was identified as the suspected murder weapon.

Cook, of Asthall Gardens, Ilford, was charged with murder on October 14 and admitted the charge on March 16 this year. He was sentenced on March 23 to life with a minimum jail term of 20 years and 205 days.

The paedophilewho ‘ruined’ four children’s lives during almost 20-year long ordeal

(Image: Essex Police)

Matthew Rivett, 44, of Stokefelde in Pitsea, has been jailed for just over two decades after being found guilty of 28 offences. Rivett sexually abused four children in Pitsea and Canvey Island during a reign of terror lasting between 2002 and 2019. The abuse came to light when some of the offences were reported to Essex Police in 2020.

Further allegations were reported the following year. As the investigation continued, one of the survivors disclosed Rivett had filmed some of the abuse. Rivett appeared at Basildon Crown Court on Friday, March 24 where he was sentenced to 22 years in jail. He will serve two thirds of that sentence in custody.

The ‘cruel’ predator who preyed on woman during night out to rape her

(Image: Essex Police)

Rory Miles, 32, was convicted last month of sexually assaulting a woman at an address in Dunmow. He had assaulted her following a night out in late 2018 before she was able to get away from him and call for help.

It led to Miles, of Harris Green, Dunmow, being charged with rape. He was found guilty of one of the five charges he faced. Three others will remain on file as no verdict was reached. On March 27 he was sentenced to four years in prison and put on the Sex Offenders’ Register for life.

The ’emotionless’ killer who murdered his partner and hid her body

(Image: Essex Police)

Gary Bennett, 37, of Caister Drive, Pitsea, murdered his partner Madison Wright, 30, when she was going to leave him. Bennett screamed “how f***ing dare you” to the jury at Basildon Crown Court after they convicted him of murder on March 28 in less than four hours.

Ms Wright was last seen on July 22 last year and her body was recovered in Way Tyler Country Park a week later on July 30. Bennett had killed her in his flat and dumped her body under shrubbery, branches and fence panels in the following week.

In her sentencing remarks, Judge Samantha Leigh said Bennett is a “do as I say, do as I want” person. She said: “Previous convictions of domestic violence and clear evidence that when the jury verdict was returned you shouted at the jury ‘how dare you, there’s no evidence’ is the true character of a man who previously sat in the dock crying.”

Judge Leigh said she was satisfied the allegations Madison had made about controlling behaviour by Bennett “were true”. Bennett was given a life sentence with a minimum of 21 years in prison before being eligible for parole.

April

The drug gang who left £10,000 in cash lying around

(Image: Essex Police)

Mirel Zeneli, 33, and Ben Chadwick, 23, have been jailed for six and three years respectively for their involvement in an organised crime group. It comes after a ten-month investigation by Essex Police into a group dealing drugs in the south of the county.

During the investigation, officers carried out warrants at the homes of three men identified as part of the crime group. Officers seized cocaine with an estimated street value of around £110,000, several thousand pounds of cannabis and around £10,000 in cash that was left lying around.

Mirel Zeneli took a leading role in the group that dealt in cocaine and cannabis between September 2021 and July 2022 and focussed on some of our biggest towns and Chelmsford. Ben Chadwick and Laurie Landman both played key roles within the organised crime group in conspiring with Mirel Zeneli to supply large amounts of cocaine for financial gain.

The manipulative predator who lied to women about having sex with them

(Image: Met Police)

Kevin Kombi, 29, of Beambridge, Basildon, Essex contacted two women through social media to falsely tell them either he or someone else has had sex with them in order to meet them. The claims were not true and caused the women significant harassment, alarm and distress.

Kombi had previously pleaded guilty to three separate breaches of a Sexual Risk Order (SRO,) which was issued to him in July 2019. The SRO was issued by Essex Police after he sent numerous messages to a woman implying that he had sex with her and he watched others have sex with her without her consent.

The first breach occurred in July 2021 when Kombi contacted a woman and made false claims that he had witnessed her having sex with another person. He used this false information to engineer a meeting with her – both the contact and the meeting breached the terms of his order.

He appeared at Snaresbrook Crown Court and was sentenced to four years and five months’ imprisonment. He will also be added to the Sex Offenders’ Register indefinitely and a Sexual Harm Prevention Order was implemented for 20 years to prohibit him causing further harm to women.

The couple who lured a man to be killed in a car park

(Image: Met Police)

Daniel Gaudin, 23, shot ten times at the man. He did not personally know the victim, but became aware of him when he was sent a video of his girlfriend, Shannon Rule, of Ashwood Road in Chingford, Essex, engaging in sexual activity with other men. Gaudin then spent the following days plotting his attack whilst Rule agreed to lure the victim to a meeting outside a Sainsbury’s in Morden, London.

Gaudin had hidden himself a short distance away and opened fire, MyLondon reports, causing life-changing injuries to his victim. After what was described as a “catastrophic and ridiculous overreaction”, both Rule and Gaudin, of Cranleigh Close, Waltham Cross, were jailed for a combined total of 57 years.

The man who slashed a guard’s neck with a razor

(Image: Essex Police)

Geoffrey Ryan had been drinking in The Lounge in Market Square, Braintree on September 9 last year before the incident took place.

The 53-year-old arrived at the venue at about 4pm and initially seemed content. However, as his drinking continued, he began to cause issues with other customers. At about 9pm, two members of security staff arrived to start their shift and Ryan soon approached them and abused them.

Soon after, at about 9.30pm, a group of women reported Ryan had been harassing them. Ryan was warned by security staff, but he continued to religiously abuse them. When he didn’t stop, he then threw a drink over the victim. Ryan was then escorted out of the venue as he continued to try to assault the door staff.

Despite being told to leave, Ryan continued to abuse the security staff and, after an exchange, he approached the victim, flicked a cigarette at him and threatened to kill him. A short time later, he left the area and appeared to be walking towards a nearby taxi rank.

Shortly before 11.30pm, a hooded Ryan returned to the town centre driving a Seat Ibiza and parked in a parent and baby car park in Sainsbury’s. From there, he walked to The Lounge and immediately approached the victim and used a razor to slash the victim’s neck.

Ryan was convicted of attempted murder and on April 5 was sentenced to 28 years in jail. He will also serve an extended three-year licence and will not be eligible for release for at least 19 years.

The driver who ran over two brawlers

(Image: PA)

Bristan William, from Barking, had been seen parking his blue BMW on the pavement and going into Revolution bar at 10.45pm in London on July 26 last year. Just over an hour later, he got back into the vehicle after a fight broke out in the street between two groups of men.

He drove towards them, hitting an unknown man, before doing a three-point turn and driving at the group again, all of whom managed to avoid being hit. He then turned the car around and steered directly at two men as they attempted to flee.

The first victim was thrown into the air and hurled against the wall of a building. He suffered a dislocated shoulder, fractured nose and three separate spinal fractures. The second victim was thrown across the bonnet of the car and roof, before being propelled 100 yards down the road. He sustained a ruptured ligament in the knee from the impact of the vehicle.

William was arrested on August 4, 2022 and went on to plead guilty to two counts of grievous bodily harm with intent and dangerous driving. On April 13, he was sentenced at the Old Bailey to seven years in prison. He was disqualified from driving for five years to run upon his release.

The ‘dangerous’ attacker who stabbed a man multiple times

(Image: Essex Police)

Billy Alder, 23, was one of two people who approached a man in his 20s as they walked along Laindon Link at around 9pm on February 28 last year.

Alder pulled a large knife and struck the victim with it. The victim ran off but was chased by Alder and the other person, a 17-year-old boy who cannot be named for legal reasons, into Great Knightleys where he was attacked again.

A member of the public shouted out, causing the attackers to flee. The victim was left with numerous injuries to his back, side and legs. Officers arrested Alder at his home address in Ward Close, Basildon, on March 5. The 17-year-old was also arrested four days later.

Alder later admitted causing grievous bodily harm with intent and was jailed for seven years on April 14 while the teenager was jailed for four years and nine months.

The fraudster who stole £250,000 in an online betting set-up

(Image: Essex Police)

Jon Howard, 40, of Tawney Lane, Stapleford Tawney, has been sent to prison for five years. He was given the sentence when he appeared at Basildon Crown Court on April 13. He was also convicted of conspiracy to commit fraud against bank Santander.

Howard was part of a syndicate which created online accounts to bet without the limitations placed on a single account. He, therefore, collected bonuses to which he would never otherwise have been entitled. Howard was accused of being central to the criminal enterprise which dated back to 2008 and involved over 1,000 online betting accounts.

Throughout the fraud, it was estimated he received £236,000. The court heard how people willingly gave their details to Howard who then impersonated them to access Bet365 services. This enabled him to utilise bonuses and circumvent the company’s checks and balances.

The driver who crashed headlong into a taxi full of people

(Image: Essex Police)

Sean Dray tried to overtake a vehicle in Frinton last year but crashed into the taxi which spun out of control and hit a tree.

On Saturday, July 23, 2022, Dray, 30, was driving his BMW X5 at speed along Walton Road at around 10.30pm when he overtook one car on a blind bend along the single carriageway. He crashed into the taxi and then the wall of a house.

The force of the rear impact caused the taxi, a Toyota Avensis, to spin out of control, coming to a stop when it crashed into a tree. When police arrived, two people were trapped in the taxi which had extensive damage and needed assistance from emergency partners to get out and four people from the taxi sustained serious injuries.

He was jailed for three years on April 19 for causing serious injury by dangerous driving.

The drugged-up driver who killed his friend in a 100mph crash

(Image: Essex Police)

Kane Gornall, 27, was jailed on Thursday (April 20) for causing death by dangerous driving. On September 25 that year, Gornall’s blue Ford Fiesta left the B1018 Witham Road and crashed into a tree shortly after midnight. Gornall, of Flemming Way, Witham, had been driving when the crash occurred.

Police found he had been driving at more than 100 miles an hour before the crash occurred. Sadly, 25-year-old passenger Jake Blease died at the scene. Gornall was jailed last week for four years and eight months.

May

The rapist who sexually assaulted his victim as she slept

(Image: Essex Police)

Shaun Western was caught raping his victim a she woke up, and then fled the house when she scramed. Western’s victim now lives with severe depression and anxiety following the rape in September 2018, and struggles to leave the house.

She has had to endure years of waiting and delays due to the Covid pandemic but now, almost five years after she was attacked, Western, 24, of Edward Paxman Gardens, Colchester, has been jailed for six years and six months. He was convicted of rape following a trial at Chelmsford Crown Court, where he tried to claim the sex had been consensual

The predator who targeted a stranger in the street

(Image: Essex Police)

Rapist Luke Bennett “offered to help” his victim before leading him into an Essex alleyway and sexually assaulting him has been jailed. Bennett had found his victim unwell in Chelmsford city centre, raped him, called an ambulance but then left as paramedics arrived.

The 28-year-old of Townsend, Springfield, found the victim in the early hours of the morning in August 2019 where he was unwell. Bennett offered to help him, only to walk the man into an alleyway where he raped and sexually assaulted him.

Bennett called for an ambulance and waited with the victim but left when the paramedics arrived. He was arrested nearby a few hours later. Bennett was later charged with rape and sexual assault.

He was found guilty following a trial at Chelmsford Crown Court last year and has now been jailed for eight years and six months.

The holiday camp manager who lured teens into sexual acts via webcam

(Image: NCA / SWNS)

Cameron Osman, 44, used the alias ‘Lizzielemon’ on social media and pretended to be a teenage girl to strike up sex chats with more than 70 teenage boys around the UK, including in Braintree, Essex.

He posed as a 16-year-old girl on Instagram and other sites, before moving the victims to video calls on Google Hangouts, Discord and Skype. But Osman never identified himself, instead telling victims his camera was broken, police said.

Investigators in the United States uncovered chat logs showing sexual messages by Osman with underage boys in 27 countries. His conversations with his victims revolved around a fantasy online world with Osman pretending to be a teenage girl.

Osman, who has been remanded in custody, will be sentenced on June 30 this year.

The drug-fuelled arsonist who set fire to bins

(Image: Essex Police)

Chris Weedon claimed he “wasn’t himself” when he started the fires in Rayleigh in July 2022. Weedon, 28, of Waltham Road, Rayleigh carried out a rampage in Rayleigh High Street on the night of July 4, setting fire to multiple commercial bins which owners discovered burnt out and melted.

In one such incident, the smoke from the flames managed to travel upwards to flats above the businesses, potentially putting residents’ lives at risk. Weedon set fire to bins outside Mr Simms Olde Sweet Shoppe, Cancer Research UK, the famous Pink Toothbrush nightclub, another independent business and the Rayleigh Motorist Centre.

He later went on to admit four counts of arson and one count of arson being reckless as to whether life was endangered. He was sentenced to 20 months in prison but was released shortly after having spent nearly a year in custody already.

The paedophile confronted in an allotment

(Image: Cambridgeshire Police)

Frank Baldwin sent vile messages to a decoy profile online including whether she “had had a boy between her legs yet”.

Baldwin, 48, of Blackmore End, Braintree, first began talking to the girl, who was actually a decoy from an online child activist group, on Facebook in January 2021. Baldwin told her he liked her profile picture and made inappropriate comments about her body and the clothes and underwear she was wearing.

In March of that year, he asked the decoy if she, “had had a boy between her legs yet”, and continued to talk to her in this manner, as well as sending her pornographic images and videos. These chats went on for months into the summer of 2021.

In August of that year, members of an online child activist group confronted him at an allotment in Chippenham, East Cambridgeshire. Cambridge Police were called and Baldwin was arrested at the scene. He was jailed for two years and two months.

The wife who picked up her killer husband from the scene of a double murder

(Image: Met Police)

Former Georgian police officer Vepkhvia Laliashvili, 53, killed Lithuanians Dainius Kulboka, 44, and Jonas Semenas, 45, in Ilford after a drunken Russian new year celebration in 2021.

Laliashvili, who worked in the motor trade, had shared five bottles of brandy with the two friends before he grabbed knives and stabbed Mr Kulboka eight times and Mr Semenas 52 times. The sound of the attack could be heard on a doorbell camera opposite the house, with one of the victims pleading with the killer to stop.

Laliashvili called his wife, Aurika Sivolova, to pick him up from the property in Tavistock Gardens before emergency services arrived. In a basis of plea, Sivolova said she had been “frightened” of her husband and was not used to defying him. She wept in the dock when admitting to perverting the course of justice.

The drug lord who hid 3.5kg of cocaine inside a bag for life

(Image: Essex Police)

Jack Jacovou was a major player in “exploiting” people through drugs in north Essex and was arrested as part of an intelligence-led operation by Essex Police shortly before Christmas 2021.

Officers raided a property in Whitehall Close, Colchester, shortly after 7am on December 23. During a search of the property, officers found a bag for life containing four blocks of powder cocaine inside an ottoman. In total, the blocks contained 3.5kg of cocaine.

A second home was then raided in Thorpe Road, Kirby Cross during which officers found 2.8kg of cannabis. In total, police seized £234,900 worth of drugs in the raids.

Jacovou, 41, of Thorpe Road, Kirby Cross, was subsequently charged with possession with intent to supply Cocaine, possession with intent to supply cannabis and being concerned in the supply of cocaine. He admitted all counts and was sentenced at Chelmsford Crown Court on Wednesday May 3. He was sentenced to six and half years in prison.

The armed robbers who raided premises across the county

(Image: Metropolitan Police)

On December 24, 2021 at around 9.18am when James Mansbridge, 48, and Wayne Byrne, 41, threatened a delivery company driver with a gun and a knife on Broomhill Road, Goodmayes.

They stole the van and drove it to a cul-de-sac in Dagenham where they transferred the stolen content to a BMW X5 bearing a false number plate. A third member, Lana Clayton, 42, then drove them away from the scene.

Clayton, from Woodford, pleaded guilty to robbery, but Mansbridge, from Chelmsford, and Byrne, from Romford, pleaded not guilty. The same BMW car was used as a getaway vehicle in an armed robbery at a convenience store in Romford on January 2, which all three pleaded guilty to.

(Image: Metropolitan Police)

Clayton recced the shop on Mawney Road before Mansbridge and Byrne committed the robbery armed with a gun. The pair stole a quantity of cash and Clayton drove them away from the scene.

The two men then carried out an armed raid on a supermarket on Gale Street, Dagenham, on January 21. Mansbridge terrorised staff with an imitation firearm, while Byrne did this with a knife, before stealing cash and cigarettes.

Mansbridge was jailed for eight and a half years and Wayne Byrne for eight years. Clayton was sentenced to two years imprisonment, suspended for two years.

The Met Police officer who sexually assaulted a child

(Image: Joe Giddens/PA Wire)

Farhan Ghadiali, 44, was not on duty at the time of the incident. Ghadiali, of Fyfield Road, Woodford Green, was charged with sexual assault of a child by touching following an incident at a party in 2019.

The 44-year-old, who has since been dismissed without notice, was off-duty at the time of the incident and later found guilty of sexual assaulting a child under the age of 13 after a re-trial. The jury took just 2.5 hours to come to their unanimous guilty verdict.

Judge Christopher Morgan told Ghadiali: “This was a serious offence against a very young child”. He said that the offence had “caused her profound psychological issues.”

The judge said that Ghadiali’s conviction had brought his police career to an end, adding: “You may find it very difficult to find employment in future”. He sentenced Ghadiali to 30 months in prison and made him subject to an indefinite Sexual Harm Prevention Order. The defendant showed no visible reaction as he was led to the cells.

The prolific thief barred from five shops in Southend

(Image: Essex Police)

Joe Linnen has been barred from entering major stores in Southend following his crime spree across the city.

Essex Police’s Business Crime Team worked to get Linnen, 28, prosecuted for multiple theft offences which has seen him handed an 18-week jail term at Southend Magistrates’ Court on May 17. As part of his sentencing, Linnen, of no fixed address, has been slapped with a criminal behaviour order which bans him from entering the locations.

They include the Tesco in Royal Terrace, Southend, the HMV store in Southend High Street, Co-Op in Hamlet Court Road, Westcliff, Marks and Spencer in Westcliff High Street and the Sainsbury’s store in London Road, Southend. The order will run for two years until May 16, 2025.

June

The organised crime boss extradited from Thailand

(Image: PA)

Richard Wakeling, 55, from Brentwood, arrived back in the country on Thursday evening and appeared at Chelmsford Crown Court on Friday afternoon (June 2).

The National Crime Agency (NCA) said that he was immediately jailed for 11 years after being convicted in his absence. The NCA said Wakeling was found guilty of trying to import £8 million worth of amphetamine suspended in liquid in 2016, but fled the UK on the eve of his trial in 2018.

At the time of his arrest, he was in possession of a passport in another identity. The NCA began its investigation into Wakeling’s organised crime group after Border Force officers stopped a truck boarding a Channel Tunnel train on April 9 2016.

The truck contained plastic drums carrying the drugs. The driver was transporting furniture from Italy but stopped at Ternat in Belgium, where phone evidence showed he was directed to collect the drugs. The NCA said the entire importation was set up by Wakeling, who was in contact with drug suppliers in the Netherlands and liaised with two other UK offenders to arrange the journey.

The brothers who stole cars and took them to chop shops

(Image: Staffordshire Police)

Samuel and Thomas Eddleston, 29 and 28, have been sentenced to around two and a half years jail time each for breaking into cars and driving them away from Stoke-on-Trent, Cheshire and Greater Manchester.

According to StokeLive, the brothers drove five vehicles to Essex on cloned plates where they were stripped for parts. They targeted 12 high-end vehicles, including Range Rovers, Jaguars and an Audi, in a ‘sophisticated’ conspiracy between September and November 2021.

The Eddleston brothers took 11 of the vehicles then drove them to an Essex chop shop in a ‘get-rich’ scheme. The brothers were arrested at their home in Union Street, Hanley, on November 25, 2021. A search discovered a key fob and a device capable of starting cars.

One of the cars stolen by the Eddleston brothers was a £23,000 Range Rover Evoque stolen from Goms Mill Road in Longton, in the early hours of September 27, 2021. It was later seen in Acton Street, Birches Head, and was driven to Essex on cloned plates on October 5, 2021 and was later sold.

A number of stolen vehicles were found at a garage in Romford, Essex on October 12, 2021, including the Range Rover Evoque. Both defendants pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to steal and handling stolen goods. Thomas Eddleston also admitted possession of a CS canister.

The crook whose victim called 999 on him mid-burglary

Damian Mills, of no fixed abode, Southend, was jailed for six years and nine months after he was sentenced at Basildon Crown Court on June 9 after he pleaded guilty to aggravated burglary at an earlier hearing.

The 32-year-old forced his way into a property in Leigh shortly before midnight on January 26, when he was armed with a kitchen knife and a Stanley knife and demanded money from the victim and his family.

While Mills searched the house, he was unaware that one of the occupants, in bed upstairs, had called 999. When police arrived just 20 minutes later, Mills was arrested in the garden of the property. No money had been taken, although Mills was found to be in possession of the victim’s mobile phone and had a hammer concealed in his clothing.

The controlling rapist who threatened to kill his victim

(Image: Essex Police)

Thomas Thorpe-Keen, 23, of Heybridge, has been sent to prison for 14 years. Thorpe-Keen, of Creasen Butt Close, came to the attention of detectives following concerns about his relationships with underage girls.

He was given a Sexual Risk Order and Criminal Behaviour Order which held a number of conditions – including not allowing him to be in the unsupervised company of anyone under the age of 18, which he breached continuously.

Thorpe-Keen targeted the 15-year-old victim and started a relationship with her. He stalked, coerced and controlled the young girl, watching for when she could be home alone and raped her multiple times throughout the relationship.

He was arrested after he had raped the victim, left the address and then broken back into the property through the living room window before threatening to kill her. Enquiries showed that he had called the victim over 100 times and waited outside her address before leaving the area, eventually being arrested in the North of England a few days later.

The man who tried to murder someone by stabbing him in the neck

(Image: Essex Police)

Curtis Butler has been locked up after launching a vicious attack and attempted murder in a street in Westcliff. Butler, 23, of Great Gregorie, Basildon, was convicted in April of stabbing his victim in Valkyrie Road shortly after midnight on October 30, 2021.

The victim, a man in his 20s, had been walking with friends over the bridge between Station Road and Valkyrie Road when Butler, wearing a balaclava, approached him, said something to him, and stabbed him.

After he fell to the floor, Butler stabbed the victim again in his neck and body before running off towards Station Road. One of the victim’s friends administered first aid before seeking help from nearby houses, at which point the emergency services were called.

Officers helped give first aid while waiting for an ambulance to arrive. The victim had sustained a collapsed lung and required life-saving surgery. Officers managed to trace Butler to a block of flats in Grovesnor Road where further witnesses provided further evidence that Butler was responsible for the attack.

Butler was arrested in April 2022 and subsequently charged with attempted murder and possession of a knife or sharp-pointed article in a public place. He denied the charge but was found guilty on April 17 following a trial at Basildon Crown Court and has now been jailed for 24 years.

The crook who terrified people in their own homes

(Image: Essex Police)

Jerome Jean, 33 of Dericote Street, London appeared at Snaresbrook Crown Court on June 14 after pleading guilty to aggravated burglary and possession of class B drugs.

Shortly before 9pm on January 23, Essex Police were called to reports of an aggravated burglary on London Road in Abridge. Three men forced entry into a house on the street, where the victims were at home.

One of the men held a large knife to the victim’s neck and demanded money. The attackers then stole a designer handbag before leaving the house. The victims were shaken but had not been harmed, police confirmed.

Officers found blood at the scene, which was matched with Jean’s blood. They also found that Jean’s phone had been in the Abridge area at the time of the attack. Jean was arrested on February 14 at his home in London, and was further arrested for possession of cannabis, a class B drug.

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The obsessive man who followed his neighbour to the UK, killed her and dumped her body

(Image: Metropolitan Police)

This is the face of a jealous man who murdered a woman he was so obsessed with that he followed her from Pakistan to the UK. Muhammad Arslan, 27, of Ilford, was found guilty of killing Hina Bashir, 21, after a trial at the Old Bailey.

Arslan forced a patterned face mask into the mouth of Ms Bashir after she visited his shared flat on the border of Essex and London last July. Arslan claimed he had only meant to quieten her after he confronted her over naked photographs of her that he had been sent.

The prosecution rejected his explanation as “elaborate and concocted” and asserted he had killed her out of anger and jealousy. Arslan admitted manslaughter on the first day of his trial but denied murder and perverting the course of justice by concealing Ms Bashir’s body.

The man who murdered his best friend

(Image: Essex Police)

Rakar Rahimi has been locked up for life for cruelly stabbing his friend Bako Azad Sheikha to death in Colchester. Mr Sheikha, 22, had come to the UK from Iraq to build a new life and be safe, but Rahimi, 23, murdered him following a row in September last year.

Chelmsford Crown Court previously heard how Bako had been ordered out of the flat he shared with Rahimi at knifepoint, before being stabbed multiple times and left for dead in Distillery Lane on September 12.

Rahimi, who denied murder but was convicted by a jury on Wednesday (June 21), threw the murder weapon away and then drove away from the scene in Mr Sheikha’s car, and attempted to flee to France before he was stopped and arrested in Dover. Mr Sheikha tragically did not survive his wounds and died at the scene.

The shop worker who exchanged sweets for sex

(Image: Essex Police)

Christopher White, 37, was said to give his victims sweets, cigarettes and alcohol in exchange for sexual activity.

White, of Mill Lane in Birch, was sentenced to 14 years in prison at Chelmsford Crown Court after being found guilty of several sexual offences against children. An investigation into White after it was reported that he had been sexually exploiting young girls whilst working in a shop in Layer De Haye between 2007 and 2009.

The victims, who were children at the time, met White when they would visit the shop he worked in Layer de la Haye. White was in his 20s at the time of the offences.

After his arrest in 2019, he was charged with two counts of rape of a child under 13, one count of sexual assault of a child under 13, one count of sexual assault of a child over 13, two counts of sexual activity with a child under 13 and one count of sexual activity with a child over 13.

He was remanded into custody. On May 19, he was found guilty of all offences. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison. White must serve at least nine years and four months before being eligible for parole.

The gang boss who smuggled fugitives out of the UK

(Image: NCA)

Mohammed Mokter Hossain, aged 54, of Gaynes Hill Road, Woodford Green, was arrested in May 2021 after the National Crime Agency snared him using surveillance and undercover tactics.

The investigation – codenamed Operation Symbolry – has now dismantled the London-based crime group operated by Hossain, who used a network of complicit lorry drivers to move people in both directions across the Channel. These included a number of fugitives who were seeking to leave the UK as they were wanted for serious crimes such as child abuse and murder.

Hossain co-ordinated the movements of drivers and arranged for taxis to drop off migrants at their pick-up locations. Following his arrest a ledger was found outlining details of the hundreds of men, women and children who had used his services. It also noted the amounts he had charged them.

The murderer who bought his weapon online with a fake ID

(Image: Met Police)

Emadh Miah, 18, of the West Midlands, killed Sadiq in Leytonstone on August 6 last year. Miah, who was 17 at the time, travelled from Birmingham to London on August 4 and is believed to have been in possession of at least one 15-inch Rambo-style knife that he had bought online using a false name fake ID.

The killer took a train to Stratford where he hired a bike and then made his way to Leytonstone. He was seen pulling his hood up, wearing gloves and using a surgical mask to conceal his face when he made his way to the street that Ghulam, 18, lived and then waited.

When Ghulam arrived, he was also on a bike. Miah took out a knife and Ghulam cycled off. Miah continued to wait for Ghulam and when he returned a short while later Miah ran after him and stabbed him in the back. Miah then went back to his bike and cycled off.

Miah had taken steps to evade detection, he had turned off his phone prior to travelling to the scene and the clothing and knife were never recovered. Miah was located in Walsall on August 9 and arrested on suspicion of murder before being charged.

At court, he admitted manslaughter but pleaded not guilty to murder. However, the jury found him guilty of murder. Miah was also sentenced in relation to a separate incident that took place in 2021.

The man found with a huge knife at a train station

(Image: British Transport Police)

Suwilanji Siwale was seen looking “nervous” by a ticket inspector who became suspicious and detained him, finding the enormous weapon within his clothing.

The 21-year-old of Heronsgate, Frinton on Sea, has now admitted possession of an article with blade or point in a public place following the incident on Thursday June 21 this year. Magistrates at North Essex Magistrates Court gave him a 26 week prison sentence – six and a half months.

The court heard how on June 22, Siwale was spoken to by a Revenue Inspector at Chelmsford Railway Station regarding his lack of valid travel ticket, and officers’ suspicions were raised by his nervous behaviour. He was then detained and searched, and a concealed knife was found in his waist band.

July

The devious couples who used sham marriages to stay in the UK

(Image: Essex Police)

In 2017, Essex Police received information about Ibrahim Ojikutu, of Campus Avenue in Dagenham, regarding a separate criminal matter and executed warrants for his arrest.

Before the start of their investigation, it appeared Ojikutu had arrived in the UK as an international student in December 2009, and later married Kady Cain in May 2012. They divorced in October 2016. Separately, Mutiat Titilope Bello had also come to the UK in January 2010 as an international student and married Selvin Daniel Woodbridge in October 2011. The pair divorced in September 2017.

However, a police investigation found that all four were known to each other. Ojikutu and Bello already had children together throughout this period, and they had used their relationships in the UK to apply for indefinite leave to remain in the country.

Shortly after their applications were approved, they applied for their divorce. Police also found messages between Woodbridge and Cain showing they were previously in a relationship, also had a child together, and the marriages were for financial gain. They were all sentenced at Chelmsford Crown Court at the beginning of July.

Ojikutu was sentenced to four years in prison while Woodbridge was sentenced to two years and three months in prison. Bello received a two-year sentence suspended for two years with 150 hours community service, and Cain received an 18-month sentence suspended for two years with 40 days rehabilitation.

The crook who stole a dog during a burglary spree

(Image: Essex Police)

Shane Smith, 31 of Gypsy Lane, Little Dunmow admitted 13 burglary-related offences from a seven-month period between August 2022 and March 2023.

Smith’s spree came to an end in March when he was arrested after being connected to burglaries and attempted burglaries in the Braintree district. He was responsible for breaking into nine homes, and stealing items including bank cards, phones and televisions. During one burglary, Smith also stole a West Highland Terrier, which has since been reunited with its owner.

This work tied Smith to burglaries in locations including Dunmow, Great Bardfield, Hatfield Peverel and Takeley. He was swiftly charged with nine counts of burglary dwelling, one count of attempted burglary and three counts of fraud by false representation. At Chelmsford Crown Court on July 10 he was jailed for seven years.

The man who killed a woman during a mass brawl convicted for a second time

(Image: Essex Police)

Bobby Nethercott from Jaywick, was jailed for 8 years for the manslaughter of Michelle Cooper when he appeared at Chelmsford Crown Court on Wednesday, July 12.

Bobby Nethercott had gone for drinks at The Never Say Die Public House in Broadway, Jaywick, on Friday, April 23 2021. After he left, he made his way with others to a house in Beach Way, where he assaulted forty-year-old Michelle in the street.

An ambulance treated Michelle at the scene for a serious head injury after she lost consciousness, before conveying her to hospital. Michelle’s condition rapidly deteriorated, and she was placed into an induced coma upon arrival at the hospital.

Michelle, from Clacton, never regained consciousness and, sadly, died of her injuries in hospital on Sunday, April 25, two days later. On March 21, 2022, the jury found Bobby Nethercott guilty of manslaughter and he was sentenced to a total of eight years for manslaughter and two counts of ABH.

However, Nethercott lodged an appeal and was acquitted of the manslaughter conviction but remained in prison for other convictions. He was re-charged and stood trial for manslaughter at Chelmsford Crown Court on June 26 this year and was convicted again, and jailed.

The drug dealers who used children to do their dirty work

(Image: Essex Police)

The Pablo line, which brought Class A substances to the streets, operated in the Southend area, exploiting a vulnerable drug user by using her home as a base.

Officers responsible for dismantling the network found Leon Frroku, 20, and Nathan Muskitta, 23, ran a sophisticated operation which differed from the typical illicit set-ups regularly uncovered by police specialist teams. Frroku was identified as the dealer responsible for directing the runners on the ground, while Muskitta was behind the sending of bulk marketing messages advertising Class A drugs to vulnerable users.

(Image: Essex Police)

Frroku played a leading role in the scheme, despite breaching a suspended prison sentence imposed just last year for his role in a separate drugs line, which was also dismantled by officers. He was the main controller of the divert phone lines and directed runners – including a juvenile – to undertake the dangerous work of dealing Class A drugs on the streets.

Muskitta was entrusted with holding the main Pablo line phone. Officers managed to track more than 4,000 outgoing advertising messages across a 23-week period.

At Basildon Crown Court on Friday, July 7, Frroku, of Colne Drive, Shoeburyness, was sentenced to eight years and two months imprisonment, while Muskitta, of Boscombe Road, Southend, was jailed for three years.

The exhausted lorry driver who caused a terrifying crash

(Image: Essex Police)

Ivan Zhyhan denied that he was too tired to be driving the lorry when he crashed into a van in front of him which then crashed into another lorry.

Shortly before 10pm on February 13, 2019, police officers were called to a three-vehicle crash that occurred between junctions eight and seven on the southbound carriageway of the M11 near Harlow. At the time of the crash, there were matrix warning signals illuminated over the carriageway indicating that there was a lane closure ahead, resulting in queuing, stationary traffic.

Zhyhan was driving an articulated lorry and was travelling at 45mph when he ploughed into the back of a stationary Renault Kangoo van in front of him, shunting the van into the rear of the stationary articulated lorry in front of him. Zhyhan was later arrested at the scene.

During an interview, he claimed he didn’t see the van until he was around 20 metres away from it despite other vehicles travelling slowly and the van’s hazard lights illuminated. Following a seven-day trial, a jury found him guilty of causing serious injury by dangerous driving and he was remanded in custody. On June 29 at the same court, Zhyhan was sentenced to two years and four months in jail.

The bumbling crook who left his glasses at a crime scene

(Image: Essex Police)

Eugene Solari, 53, had conducted online research to identify the home address of someone selling a high-value watch.

The seller left details of their former address, in Wickford, on social media with new occupants since moving in. Solari, of Southchurch Road in Southend, visited the home in August 2020 and pushed his way inside as he threatened the occupant. He made demands for money or the watch. The occupant fled the address with Solari leaving via the front door.

When he left, he was confronted by the victim’s husband who had just got home. A scuffle followed and Solari’s glasses were left at the scene before he fled in a car driven by accomplice Richard Forward, 57, of Warwick Drive in Rochford.

Solari was later identified from DNA evidence left on his glasses, and the victim was able to positively identify Solari. Appearing at Basildon Crown Court for sentence, Solari, of Southchurch Road, Southend, was sentenced to six years in jail. Forward admitted one count of dangerous driving and was sentenced to eight months imprisonment, suspended for 18 months, at the same court on Friday 14 July.

The child rapist who told his victims it was ‘their little secret’

(Image: Essex Police)

Mark Smith, 30, of Florian Avenue in Sutton, was sent to prison after admitting rape and assault by penetration involving a child.

Smith forced a girl to engage in a sexual act at an address in Canvey Island in 2016. The victim reported that he had threatened her and told her that it was their “little secret”.

She said she felt too embarrassed and scared to tell anyone what happened and was left feeling it was her fault. As a result of the assault, the victim experienced significant struggles with her mental health to the point that she needed professional help. Following this, in August 2019, the offences were disclosed to Essex Police.

Smith was arrested the following month and when initially interviewed denied remembering the incident stating he couldn’t recall if he was at the address on that day. He was later charged with rape and assault by penetration and admitted the offences at Basildon Crown Court on March 30 last year. He was jailed for 13 years and six months.

The lorry driver who killed a police officer

(Image: Essex Police)

PC Tris Baker was off duty when the car he was driving was struck by a lorry on the A1060 in Roxwell on September 23, 2021.

The 41-year-old was a Children and Young Person Officer based in Brentwood. The driver of the lorry – Robert Harrison, 38, of St Clair Close, Clacton – was charged with causing death by dangerous driving following an investigation by police.

Officers looked into Harrison’s sleep history, and it transpired that he was vulnerable to falling asleep in monotonous situations such as driving on a familiar road, sleeping only between five and six hours per night and requiring strong doses of caffeine in order to carry out his day-to-day responsibilities.

Harrison was convicted by a jury following a trial at Chelmsford Crown Court in June, and on July 20 he was jailed for seven years and will be disqualified from driving for five years.

The drug dealer whose product killed two people

(Image: Essex Police)

Ahmed Khelifi, 39, had a £1,000 stash of heroin laced with etonitazene – the same powerful substance discovered at the scene where a man and woman were found dead in Basildon last month.

The pair, in their 40s, died after unknowingly consuming the opioid, which is of similar or higher toxicity to fentanyl. After examining the woman’s phone, police found the last number dialled was that of a drug line linked to Khelifi.

They searched his home in Gower Chase, Basildon, where they found the same strain of heroin as well as £1,100 worth of crack cocaine and £2,305 of cash hidden in the cushions of the dining chairs.

Appearing at Basildon Crown Court on July 20, Khelifi was sentenced to two years and four months in prison after pleading guilty to charges of being concerned in the supply of Class A drugs and two counts of possession with intent to supply Class A drugs.

The fraudster who posed as the police

(Image: Met Police)

During his offending, Kishan Bhatt defrauded nine victims out of more than £260,000 in total but there were numerous further attempts that were blocked by financial institutions or jewellers.

On January 26, 2022, a suspicious jeweller contacted police, who visited the victim at her home address in Colchester. The 90-year-old victim had been contacted by a man at the beginning of the year who identified himself as a police officer stating they had arrested a male with her bank card.

Bhatt, 28, of no fixed address was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment after committing nine counts of fraud by false representation. He was sentenced at Snaresbrook Crown Court on Tuesday, 25 July after pleading guilty on 4 November 2022 at the same court.

The domestic abuser who hit, stabbed and strangled his partner

(Image: Essex Police)

Chris St Marie claimed it “was not right” and that he had “never been abusive” in response when given his jail sentence in court on July 27.

St Marie, 50, of Haileswood, Bishops Stortford, has left his victim feeling like she can never trust a man again after subjecting her to four years’ worth of abuse in her own home. The couple lived in Stansted Mountfitchet and Elsenham at the time of the offences.

St Marie would regularly hit his partner, Victoria Ling, 42, and on one occasion took a knife and stabbed her in the top of the scalp and shoulder. Ms Ling would regularly be forced to stay at her home, had her phone confiscated so she couldn’t contact friends, and if she objected she would be physically attacked. The abuse happened between 2018 and 2022.

He was jailed for five and a half years, with an additional six-year restraining order preventing him from contacting Ms Ling after he leaves prison. She bravely spoke to EssexLive about her ordeal, which you can read here.

The killers who ‘senselessly’ murdered a dad in a shopping centre

(Image: Essex Police)

Michael Ugwa, 29, was killed at Lakeside Shopping Centre in Thurrock on April 28 last year after complimenting a woman. Muhammad Khan, 24, was found guilty of Mr Ugwa’s murder and of affray following an earlier trial at Basildon Crown Court.

Judge Samantha Leigh said she was satisfied so she was sure that Khan had said, in the car on the way to the shopping mall, that he “felt like killing someone today”.

She said Khan was wearing a full-face balaclava, had argued with his girlfriend earlier that day and “was clearly in an aggressive mood”. He had carried a knife daily for “almost 18 months” before the incident, the judge said, and he produced his flick-knife at Lakeside, “one of the biggest shopping centres in England, it was full of people”.

(Image: Essex Police)

Khan was given a life sentence, while Brandon Lutchmunsing, 21, who was found guilty of manslaughter and affray, was sentenced to 13 years in prison with a further two-year extended licence period. Jurors were told how an argument broke out after Mr Ugwa made comments towards Lutchmunsing’s girlfriend.

The vile sex abuser who left his victim ‘petrified’ to talk to police

(Image: Essex Police)

Derek Withers has been locked up for a decade after sexually abusing two people in Harwich.

Withers, 68 of Bowes Road, New Southgate appeared at Chelmsford Crown Court on Thursday (July 27) where following a week-long trial he was sentenced to ten years in prison after being found guilty of sexual offences against two children. Withers was arrested in December 2020 after two victims bravely contacted Essex Police to report the crimes.

Following an investigation by the Child Abuse Investigation Team, Withers was charged with indecent assault of a girl under 13, engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child under 13 and assault of a girl under 13. The victims were assisted by the police and an Independent Sexual Violence Advisor (ISVA) from CARA (Centre for Action on Rape and Abuse) who provide direct support for those surviving after sexual abuse.

August

The man involved in a murder over mistaken identity

(Image: Met Police)

Met detectives carried out painstaking phone and CCTV work to place the defendants at the scene of the murder of Sven Badzak, and in regular contact with each other. Rashid Gedel, 22, of Fenman Gardens, Ilford and Shiroh Ambersley, 23, of Matthews Close, Wembley were each jailed for 27 years for the murder of Sven and 12 years (concurrent) for Section 18 GBH against a then 16-year-old male – the victim’s friend.

Prior to the stabbing, Gedel and Ambersley walked into a bakery on Kilburn High Road, Kilburn and were clearly seen to stare at two females stood at the counter, before leaving without buying anything. Detectives believe this was an indication that they were actively looking for someone to attack.

Sven and his friend were walking further along the same road, having visited a supermarket. The friend was watching a football match on his phone. Unbeknownst to them, Gedel was fast approaching them from behind. As Gedel got closer to the pair he was joined by Ambersley and Canavan who, until that point, had been on the other side of the road.

When they reached the victims they were heard to say “What are you on?” before stabbing Sven in the chest and the second victim in his back. Sven managed to run a short distance before collapsing in the street.

The paedophile who travelled across the world to abuse children

(Image: Essex Police)

The National Crime Agency (NCA) along with Europol and Dutch authorities identified that Christopher Behn, 68, was a member of a Europe-wide network who travelled together to abuse children across the globe.

Behn, from Colchester, is serving nine years in prison for a snapshot of his offending – the abuse of 11 children in Myanmar in 2016. He was arrested at Gatwick Airport by the NCA in February 2020, after investigators identified him as appearing in images with another member of the network, a Dutch man who was convicted in the Netherlands.

Behn was detained by officers before he could board a flight to Vietnam. A number of the electronic devices officers seized from him were encrypted, however forensic work led to the recovery of photographs taken by Behn of him abusing children in Myanmar. He was prosecuted for these offences, but it became clear he was involved in offending on a much larger scale, and the investigation continued.

The thug who stole £1,300 and left shop staff ‘helpless’

(Image: Essex Police)

Billy Bugby, 32, of Longbridge Road, Barking, admitted the robbery of the Co-Op store in Stanford-le-Hope, Thurrock on April 29 this year.

Bugby and accomplice Daniel Dash, 30, entered the store shortly after 9.30pm, before proceeding to access the area behind the tills. He pulled open a drawer and removed bottles of alcohol and cigarettes, also taking scratch cards from the till area.

The goods were stashed in a bag before the pair left the shop. Witnesses reported seeing a knife and said threats were made towards staff. CCTV footage of them was obtained and just over a week later Bugby was spotted by an officer on patrol on Barking on May 7.

He was arrested and charged with robbery and at Basildon Crown Court on August 8 he was sentenced to two years in jail. Dash, of no fixed address, was arrested on 5 May and is due to be sentenced on Thursday, November 2.

The abuser who threw household items at his partner

(Image: Essex Police)

32-year-old Ben Barnsley, of Ronald Road, Halstead, launched an attack on a woman at a property in Tendring in January this year.

After shouting abuse, he threw the welly and hoover at her, which struck the victim to her head. When she went upstairs to check herself over for injuries, Barnsley pushed her onto a bed and put his hands on her neck, applying pressure and restricting her breathing for several seconds.

After she managed to break free, Barnsley proceeded to throw a pint glass at her, which struck her and smashed, cutting her hands. Barnsley fled the address when his victim dialled 999. She was left with cuts, a bruise below her eye and a bruise on her neck. Essex Police arrested Barnsley the following day on suspicion of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

The man who stabbed his friend to death with a zombie knife

(Image: Essex Police)

Perry Coulson of Lesney Gardens, Rochford, appeared at Basildon Crown Court on August 11 where he was sentenced to life in prison, to serve a minimum 16 years.

A murder investigation was launched on Friday, November 25, 2022, following reports of a man being seriously assaulted at an address in Lesney Gardens, Rochford. Despite the best efforts of emergency services at the scene, 32-year-old father of two Dominic Clark-Ellingford died at the scene.

The call to police came from a family member of Perry Coulson, who he had called for help shortly after the assault. When police arrived, Coulson was sat outside the front of the address in a car. He was arrested on suspicion of murder.

Whilst in custody, Coulson made a number of significant comments including saying “this is what alcohol and cocaine causes, it’s my friend, that was my mate, I can’t believe it.”

The gang who hid £18,000 in concrete

(Image: Essex Police)

Officers carried out simultaneous dawn raids at locations in Canvey Island and Billericay on February 8 last year to tackle the organised crime group’s activities that operated between 2017 and February 2022. At just one address, cash concealed in plastic boxes were found hidden in concrete that, when smashed open, revealed almost £19,000. In total, more than £82,000 cash was seized that day.

One of the group, Jimmy Heary, 59, was arrested at a business address in Furtherwick Road, Canvey Island where officers found £3,685 cash and seized three mobile phones. When they searched his car, a bag containing 63 wraps of cocaine was found.

Meanwhile, at his home address in Oak Road, Crays Hill, officers found a large amount of designer counterfeit fashion items when they entered the property. Sheralee Heary, 52, was home in Oak Road when officers searched the address where they found drug paraphernalia including packaging that matched the drug wraps found at the Canvey Island address.

Officers also found £7,000 cash and more mobile phones. Other arrests made that morning included Jade Sandell, Nicholas Axford and Jasmine Burrows. Police found messages on various phones linking the members of the group, showing that Connal Regan, 28, formerly of Canvey Island was the kingpin in the operation.

The crooks who dressed as police officers to raid homes

(Image: Cambs Police)

This group of crooks, who were armed with guns, hammer and crowbars – have been jailed for a combined total of more than 50 years.

Police were called just after 4am on August 4 last year with reports of a disturbance at a house in Sheringham Way, Orton Longueville, Cambridgeshire. A group of five men – Olsi Cakoni, Florin Doci, Tom Dodaj, Malesio Gjonaj, and one person who remains unknown – posed as police officers and armed themselves with guns, hammers, and crowbars.

They forced their way into the home which had been used to stash large amounts of cash. The five men left the house with a large bag containing what is believed to be a large amount of cash and class-A drugs.

They climbed garden fences and dropped some of the weapons and police uniforms, which were later recovered by police. A van used by the group to arrive at the house was dumped in Peterborough. It was later recovered by police, who found some of the fake police uniforms in the back, along with zip ties, a remote CCTV camera and two firearms – one of which was an imitation, the other a viable, loaded handgun.

The woman banned from Boots, Co-Op and Matalan for shoplifting

(Image: Essex Police)

Essex Police have given Sally Burrows a Criminal Behaviour Order (CBO) due to her previous history of stealing produce, meaning she is banned from setting foot in the same stores.

The 48-year-old of no fixed address has also been jailed after admitting five counts of thefts from a shop, one count of assault by beating and another charge of failing to provide a sample for a drugs test. On August 16 she was jailed for 24 weeks and was issued the five-year CBO.

The court decided that, due to Burrow’s repeat offending and the nature of her offences, she would have to be sent to prison. Burrows was ordered to pay compensation of £160 in relation to the assault.

The heroin dealer calling himself “Big D”

(Image: Essex Police)

Sindujan Chandran tried to escape justice by fleeing across the country to Leicestershire, but has now been jailed for his county lines exploits.

Chandran, 33, was identified as the holder of the ‘Big D’ drug line, which has operated in Southend since May 2022. Essex Police’s Op Raptor team became aware of the line during a separate investigation into an unrelated drugs line and in November of 2022, they discovered messages advertising the sale of crack cocaine and heroin.

Over the course of the next five months, officers found the messages came from a particular mobile phone number and traced that back to Chandran. Chandran had topped up that mobile phone number with credit, and located him topping it up on CCTV.

The man banned from all the Co-Op stores

(Image: Essex Police)

Prolific shoplifter Charlie Hunt-Wragg, of Maldon High Street, is barred from entering any of the chain’s stores in the city for three years.

On August 23, Colchester Magistrates’ Court granted a three-year criminal behaviour order (CBO) against the 23-year-old which forbids him from entering any Co-op store in Chelmsford during that time. He is also banned from entering the High Chelmer Shopping Centre in Chelmsford and from remaining in any shop or commercial premises if staff ask him to leave.

Hunt-Wragg was also ordered to carry out 50 hours of unpaid work and to pay a £114 victim surcharge. He had previously admitted three counts of theft from the Co-op store in Melbourne Avenue on June 13 and 16 and July 6, and one relating to the store in Havengore on June 26.

He also admitted stealing from Bodycare in the High Chelmer Shopping Centre on June 28 and from the Co-op store in Torquay Road, Springfield, on July 3 and 13. Household products, including washing detergent, toiletries, confectionery, pet food and litter were among the items he stole.

The arsonist who started a fire after a row

(Image: Essex Police)

Police said Edward Teagle put residents’ lives at risk when he used a lighter to start a blaze in a communal hallway earlier this year. Essex Police said Teagle, 34, had attended a party before the incident on the third floor of a building in Harwich that housed a set of multi-occupancy flats. While at the party, he had an argument with his partner.

Police said Teagle was “angry and intoxicated”, and that he left the flat and went down to the second floor, where he used a lighter to set “several curtains and the carpet” alight in the communal hallway. The building’s alarm system then went off and the fire was put out by residents alerted by the sound and the smoke.

September

The man who travelled in a Call of Duty mask to murder another

(Image: Met Police)

Drug dealing “enforcer” Timothy Adeoye, 20, plunged a large kitchen knife into 18-year-old Donavan Allen’s chest at a block of flats in Enfield, north London, on February 7 last year.

Mr Allen was not the intended target, a court heard. Adeoye, known as T-Trapz, denied being the person behind the distinctive mask but he was found guilty of murder, having a knife and threatening another person with a blade.

On Monday (September 4), Mr Allen’s family gathered at the Old Bailey for Adeoye’s sentencing – only to learn he had refused to leave Pentonville prison. In a victim impact read to the court, Mr Allen’s father Orlando said his son was excited about writing lyrics, making rap videos and performing.

He said: “I was there when he was born and held him with my own hands and I used my own hands to shovel the dirt to bury him. Timothy, why did you kill my son?” Judge Philip Katz KC said Adeoye’s decision not to attend his sentencing showed a “lack of empathy, and cowardice”. Adeoye refused to attend the Old Bailey when he was locked up for at least 23 years for murdering 18-year-old Donavan Allen.

The killers who left their victim for dead on the pavement

(Image: Metropolitan Police)

Samina Khalid stood for 12 hours in the cold before she could enter the crime scene and see her son Kamran Khalid lying dead after being fatally stabbed.

Kamran was murdered in the early hours of October 28, 2021 in Harrow Road, Ilford following a row with a group of men. Police were called at 3.54am to the road where they found the 18-year-old who had been stabbed 34 times. He was treated at the scene but despite the best efforts of the emergency services, he was sadly pronounced dead a short time later.

Following a trial at Basildon Crown Court, two brothers and a teenager were convicted of killing Kamran on July 10 this year. Abubakar Binabdulaziz, 20, of Eton Road, Ilford, and a 17-year-old boy from Ilford, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were convicted of murder, while Ashraf Binabdulaziz, 25, also of Eton Road, was convicted of manslaughter.

The judge said there had been “no adequate expression of remorse other than what could be described as self-pity”. The 17-year-old boy was given a life sentence with a minimum of 16 years in a young offenders detention facility. Ashraf was given 11 years in jail for manslaughter, while Abubakar was given a life sentence with a minimum of 21 years in jail before he could apply for parole.

The thug who threatened an innocent boy

(Image: Essex Police)

The boy was walking home with two friends in August 2021 when he was approached by 44-year-old Christopher Barden in Manchester Drive, Leigh-on-Sea.

Barden wrongly believed the victim had been involved in an incident involving his daughter. Grabbing the child, he made threats and showed him an imitation firearm he had concealed in his pocket. After the boy reported the incident to his mother, Essex Police was contacted.

Officers arrested Barden a short time later on suspicion of possessing an imitation firearm with intent to cause fear of violence and common assault. He answered “no comment” to all questions asked in interview. Barden, of Blenheim Chase, Leigh, was later charged with possession of an imitation firearm, common assault and affray following a thorough investigation.

He denied the charges and faced a trial at Basildon Crown Court in May this year, with a jury convicting him on all three counts. On Friday September 8, Barden was sentenced to two years and six months in prison.

The man who flipped a Range Rover then tried to cover it up

(Image: Essex Police)

Liam O’Brien hit a Peugeot which was turning into the driveway of an address in London Road at around 9.35pm on September 3, 2022. Witness evidence described O’Brien climbing out of the car and walking off in the direction of the A12 while talking on a mobile phone, saying “I’ve smashed my car up”. The driver of the Peugeot was not seriously injured.

Moments later, an Audi A1 driven by 30-year-old Max Mayo, was seen approaching the scene of the collision before colliding with the Range Rover. Sadly, Max was pronounced dead at the scene. At 9.40pm, the registered keeper of the Range Rover – O’Brien’s girlfriend Hannah Humphrey – called Essex Police reporting that her car had been stolen.

When officers went to speak to Humphrey the following day, she told them she had arrived home at 9.30pm and the car was already gone. But CCTV footage showed someone coming out of her address at around 9.25pm, getting