15 Yorkshire murderers, paedophiles and thieves in court this week
It’s been another busy week in Yorkshire’s courts, with a number of people appearing in the dock accused of a large variety of crimes. This week has seen a double murderer lose his appeal a year after being convicted, a stalker jailed after he began a vendetta against a work colleague who did not want a romantic relationship with him, and a prolific thief caught after she made herself a Pot Noodle and left her DNA at the scene. Below is a list of people who have appeared in court this week.
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Cedric Brisson
Cedric Brisson was given a 12-month prison sentence suspended for 18 months at York Crown Court (Image: North Yorkshire Police)
Controlling brute Brisson was handed a year-long sentence suspended for 18 months after he appeared at York Crown Court and admitted assault and coercive control. Brisson carried out a brutal campaign of assault and coercive control on his ex-partner a number of times, the court heard, leaving her “traumatised.” He subjected his former partner to sustained and repeated acts of abuse and controlling behaviour and his physical assaults and damage to her home left her feeling terrified.
In her victim impact statement, she said: “I am still traumatised by the abuse he inflicted upon me and struggle to do normal, everyday things.” Read the full story here
Craig Richardson
Craig Richardson has been jailed again after attempting to meet teenage girls (Image: West Yorkshire Police)
Prolific paedophile Richardson was arrested at a Castleford bus station after attempting to meet a 14-year-old girl while he was the subject of a sexual harm prevention order. In fact, Richardson was speaking to two “decoys” named Nikki and Lucy and was met by police who arrested him.
In March last year he was jailed for a year-and-a-half for similar offences where he tried to incite a girl – another decoy – into sexual activity before vigilante paedophile hunters showed up at his home to confront him.
Richardson was last convicted last year
Again Richardson was subject to a sexual harm prevention order (SHPO) at the time. This week, he was handed an extended sentence of eight years, made up of a custodial term of four years, and an extended licence period of four years. Read the full story here.
Peter Byrne
Paedophile Peter Byrne has been described as a ‘dangerous offender’ (Image: West Yorkshire Police)
Dangerous paedophile Byrne was jailed for 17 years for the horrific sexual abuse he subjected a young boy and girl to more than 30 years ago.
Byrne, now 76, violently raped both his victims on multiple occasions. He was first convicted of indecently assaulting girls under 14 back in 1970 when he was 25. He also admitted further sexual abuse offences in the late 1980s.
In 2016, at the age of 69 Byrne, now of Townsgate Way, Irlam, Manchester, travelled 150 miles to sexually attack an eight-year-old girl only to find out he had been talking to an undercover police officer.
Byrne was jailed for 30 months for that offence, but his court case prompted two more of his victims to contact the police. Last month he was convicted of a series of serious sexual offences against them dating back to the 1980s and early 1990s. Read the full story here.
Brian Barnes
Brian Barnes was caught talking to someone he believed to be an 11-year-old boy
Dad-of-three Barnes managed to avoid an immediate prison sentence after he was “stung” by a paedophile vigilante group.
Barnes believed he had been speaking with an 11-year-old boy, but it was actually a decoy. He asked them for pictures of their genitalia and requested video calls before he was passed over to another member of the group who located him in Todmorden and performed a citizen’s arrest. Bradford Crown Court heard that since then Barnes had been subject to abuse, and someone had even tried to run him over as he waited to pick his children up from school.
He was handed an eight-month sentence suspended for 21 months. Read the full story here.
Frankie Simpson
Frankie Simpson, 20, who has been locked up for deliberately ramming into a car on the Holme Wood estate (Image: West Yorkshire Police)
Simpson deliberately rammed a parked Volkswagen Golf minutes before the murder of quad bike passenger Rahees Mahmood. He has been locked up for 16 months for the crime
Simpson was involved in antisocial driving in the Nissan Terrano that afternoon before he stopped on the Holme Wood estate in Bradford and reversed repeatedly into the Golf. He caused nearly GBP15,000 worth of damage, writing off the vehicle.
Bradford Crown Court heard this week that the Terrano was abandoned after the apparently motiveless attack and it was later “torched” by someone unknown. Within minutes of the damage being caused to the Golf, armed men on a quadbike and a moped drove to a street where Jordan Glover and others were parked up in a Ford Focus.
Glover then began a high-speed pursuit which resulted in the death of 18-year-old Mr Mahmood and the quad bike driver being seriously injured. Last week Glover, 24, of Thorpe Edge, Bradford, was jailed for life for the murder of Mr Mahmood. Read the full story here.
Timothy Lee Philip Millward
Timothy Philip Lee Millward has been jailed for his campaign of stalking (Image: North Yorkshire Police)
Millward plotted a bizarre fake kidnap ploy after his romantic advances were spurned by a work colleague.
A woman met Millward as they both worked at a hotel in Scarborough, but after making it clear she did not want a romantic relationship with him, he began his vendetta which saw her investigated for fraud after police believed she had concocted a fake kidnap plot. Analysis later showed Millward was behind the ploy and had been sending malicious messages to the woman’s family. He was locked up for five years and 11 months for stalking.
Danielle Nuttell
Danielle Nuttell returned to the scene of a burglary to make herself a Pot Noodle (Image: Nick Potts/PA Wire)
Prolific thief Nuttell targeted accommodation for people with poor mental health in a burglary in November last year. Nuttell took a TV from a wall and returned for a remote control. In a bizarre turn of events, she then returned half an hour later to make herself a Pot Noodle.
Sheffield Crown Court heard this week that the preparation of the popular snack was to be Nuttell’s downfall as police recovered her DNA from the carton. She was also seen on CCTV. Nuttell was handed a nine month sentence suspended for 18 months.
Alan Dudzinski
West Yorkshire Police officer Alan Dudzinski avoided an immediate prison sentence (Image: Copyright Unknown)
West Yorkshire Police officer Dudzinski managed to avoid prison despite downloading more than 100 images of child abuse. The images viewed by Dudzinski, 20, from Leeds, featured victims as young as three. His home was raided by officers in May last year after they received intelligence.
They seized his Samsung Galaxy Note and custom-built gaming PC.
On the devices, 46 indecent images of children at category A, 41 at category B and 34 at category C were found. Four extreme pornographic images depicting beastiality were also found on the devices. Earlier this week, Dudzinski was handed an eight month sentence suspended for two years and ordered to sign the Sex Offenders’ Register for ten years.
Caroline Mitchell
She was sentenced at Leeds Crown Court
Mitchell has been jailed after she conducted her own research on an ongoing child abuse trial while on jury duty. The 53-year-old was working as a solicitor when she was selected as a juror for a trial at York Crown Court in March last year. The trial related to a number of child sexual offences dating back to the 1970s.
During a sentencing Leeds Crown Court heard that, as the trial commenced, an issue arose as to whether the complainant had a bedroom of their own. The size of the room at the home was another bone of contention, but the jury were told not to speculate about the issue – something Mitchell later denied hearing.
The Recorder of Leeds, Judge Guy Kearl QC, said neither the prosecution or the defence in the case could provide evidence of the room’s dimensions at the time of the offending. The jury were shown a floor plan of the house, accurate as of 2018, but no dimensions were available.
While the trial was still active, Mitchell was browsing the property website Rightmove on her iPad at home when she decided to see if she could find any information about the house in question. “You could not, but you found a floor plan of a neighbouring property including its dimensions,” said Judge Kearl QC. “You took a screenshot of those dimensions, retained it overnight and took it (the iPad) to court the following day to show fellow jurors.” The judge said a court clerk saw Mitchell on her iPad while discussing what she had found with fellow jurors the next day. The case had to be thrown out and was retried in May last year.
Mitchell was jailed for two months. Read the full story here.
Gary Allen
Gary Allen was convicted of both murders 21 years apart (Image: South Yorkshire Police)
Evil killer Allen, who was responsible for the deaths of Alena Grlakova in Rotherham in 2018, and Samantha Class in Hull in 1997, has lost an appeal against his convictions. Allen was found guilty of two counts of murder during a trial at Sheffield Crown Court last year and handed a life sentence with a minimum of 37 years.
On Thursday, he brought a fresh appeal against both his murder convictions and sentence at the Royal Courts of Justice in London.
Alena Grlakova was violently murdered by Gary Allen in 2018 in Rotherham (Image: South Yorkshire Police)
Rejecting the appeal, Lord Justice Holroyde said of the trial judge: “All he did, and in our view rightly did, was to give a faithful summary of the evidence of the witnesses and mention briefly the need to be cautious about identification evidence. “The observation was neither inappropriate nor unfair,” he added. He also concluded that the sentence handed to Allen was not “manifestly excessive in length”, noting the judge had taken into account aggravating factors in the case.
Nigel Hallam
Nigel Hallam was jailed for the horrific control he kept over his wife (Image: South Yorkshire Police)
Bullying husband Hallam was jailed after his neighbours heard him attacking his wife, who he had subjected to years of violence and control. Hallam’s shouts could be heard through the walls during one incident where he punched his wife of a number of years. Sheffield Crown Court heard Hallam controlled his wife, used her bank and Amazon accounts, told her what to wear and even said he would set fire to her house and kill her and a boyfriend should she get one.
Mark Butterworth
He was sentenced at Sheffield Crown Court
Sinister Barnsley rapist Butterworth was jailed for 12-and-a-half-years after being convicted of a number of sickening sex offences against children. One of Butterworth’s victims found out they were not the only one after finding an indecent image of a young girl, which was later deleted by the paedophile’s family. Sheffield Crown Court heard Butterworth abused the victims who were between nine and 12 years old when he was a teenager himself.
He bribed them with the use of his PlayStation to get them to do what he wanted, and even forced one of them to watch pornography. Read the full story here.
Toby and Jack Love
A neighbourhood police officer was assaulted during a struggle in Lundwood on Monday (Image: PA)
Toby and Jack Love appeared at Barnsley Magistrates’ Court this week where they pleaded guilty to section 20 grievous bodily harm after an incident where a neighbourhood police officer was attacked in Lundwood. South Yorkshire Police said that at around 8.45pm, the neighbourhood officer was on patrol on Pontefract Road in Lundwood when he came across a group of young people engaging in antisocial behaviour.
It is reported that when the officer attempted to detain one of the men, a violent struggle then happened. The officer was attacked and kicked and punched to the head and face by members of the group. He was taken to hospital where he received treatment for a broken nose, damage to his teeth and a suspected broken cheekbone.
Toby and Jack Love will both appear at the Crown court on May 31. Read the full story here.
Jordan Ratcliffe
Jordan Ratcliffe has been jailed after he held a rifle to his partner’s mum and brother and threatened to shoot them (Image: West Yorkshire Police)
Bradford thug Ratcliffe threatened to release intimate photographs of his girlfriend before he pulled a gun out on her brother and mum. Ratcliffe and the girl had been in a “toxic” relationship that bore “all of the hallmarks of a controlling and coercive relationship” before his terrifying crime spree.
The 22-year-old and the woman had been together for a number of years, but Ratcliffe was known to be controlling, demanding to know who she was with, who she spoke to and what she was doing on her phone.
It was in August 2020 that things turned more sinister as he threatened to post intimate photos of her in a group chat and then pulled a rifle on her relatives when they confronted him. Ratcliffe was found by police later in possession of a knuckle-duster. He was jailed for 32 months at Bradford Crown Court on Friday and made the subject of a 10-year restraining order.
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