Fourteen of Devon’s most serious criminals caught on camera

Video evidence is often crucial is criminal court cases. Town centre CCTV, security footage, undercover traps, mobile phone video and car-tracking have been pivotal in countless trials in recent years.

Damning evidence of bar room brawlers, arsonists, street thugs, drug dealers, perverts, burglars and killers is regularly played in court. In years gone by the quality of footage could be poor, but advances in technology make it easier than ever to identify the criminal. It can also prove that a defendant was not responsible for the crime.

Some of the most complicated cases involve months of police surveillance or trawls through thousands of hours of footage to piece together the movements of a murderer.

Here DevonLive takes a look at the most serious cases in recent years involving the use of camera footage.

Georgie Keating, part of organised crime group who supplied class A drugs to Devon and Cornwall (Image: Devon and Cornwall Police)

Members of a criminal gang involved in the supply of hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of heroin and cocaine from Merseyside to towns and cities in Devon and Cornwall were jailed for more than 86 years^[1].

A complex and painstaking examination of phone records, messages, cell-site analysis, cross-referenced with CCTV footage from shops, garages, traffic cameras and other private cameras allowed the specialist police officers to pinpoint offenders and prove their part in the conspiracy to supply dugs.

During the operation police were able to carry out nine stop searches of vehicles being used by the gang, seizing 15.4 kilos of heroin and cocaine which police have said would have had a street value of a staggering £1,409,584.

Jemma Mitchell (Image: PA)

Deborah Chong, whose real name was Mee Kuen Chong, was murdered and decapitated in 2021. Her body was transported 200 miles from her home in London and discovered in rural South Devon^[3] by walkers.

One-time friend Jemma Mitchell was convicted of the killing. The trained osteopath, who had boasted online of her skill in human dissection, entered Deborah’s house on June 11, 2021 with a big blue suitcase, with which she was seen leaving four hours later.

Deborah agreed to lend Jemma money to help with repairs at her family home, although – fatefully – this offer was later rescinded. Jemma then plotted to inherit the money she felt she had been promised by meticulously planning Deborah’s murder.

Hammer robbery in Torquay shop

Two men were jailed for a brutal robbery during which a shop worker was repeatedly battered over the head with a hammer. CCTV captured dangerous thug Patrick Grady swinging the claw hammer and striking the victim to the ground.

He helped himself to booze from the shelves before stepping over the fallen victim and leaving the shop in Torquay^[5]. The bloodied cashier was taken to hospital.

A judge said he might have been killed were it not for the thickness of his dreadlocks which helped to cushion the blows.

The group were seen on CCTV in Torquay town centre fighting and provoking one another in the street (Image: Devon and Cornwall Police)

Twelve fighting football hooligans were banned from matches after a mass brawl broke out following a pre-season friendly match between Torquay United and Exeter City. The squabble between the two sets of fans took place on July 23, 2022, in the street in the seaside town, following the game which Torquay won 1-0.

CCTV footage of the group in Torquay town centre – which captured the fans fighting and provoking each other in the street – was shown to the courts. Hearings to convict those involved have been running since March 2023 at Newton Abbot^[7] Magistrates’ Court and Exeter Magistrates’ Court, with the final defendant sentenced on Friday October 27.

Several of those involved have been handed a football banning order which will remain in place for four years. Footage from the CCTV shows the fighting taking place.

CCTV from inside one of the stores

CCTV pictures the moment a thief ran away with £17,000 worth of jewellery from a store in Paignton. Guy Sullivan pleaded guilty to several charges in relation to jewel thefts and shoplifting around the South West.

Sullivan, 42, was arrested by police after he was found in the loft of a property in Eggbuckland Road, Plymouth. He was wanted by police in connection with a series of thefts from jewellery shops in Saltash, Plymouth^[9], Totnes^[10] and Paignton^[11] – including one theft which totalled around £17,000.

The incidents took place over a three-week period.

Nicholas Ashby was pulled over by police on the M5 in January (Image: Devon and Cornwall Police)

Police released footage of the moment a sexual predator was caught and arrested on the M5. Nicholas Ashby, 41, sexually assaulted a woman and attempted to rape another woman as they walked home last year.^[13][14]

The first incident occurred in the early hours of Sunday, September 25 2022, when the victim was walking home alone after a night out with friends. As she walked along Bear Street, near the entrance of Barnstaple^[15] Cemetery, she noticed a car pull into a lay-by ahead of her.

Once she had passed the vehicle, she was approached by an unknown man who sexually assaulted her and put his arm across her neck causing her to momentarily pass-out. When she woke, the offender returned to his vehicle.

Rapist Adam Mohammed caught on CCTV

A man who raped an Exeter student as she lay asleep in her bed was jailed in January. He had blagged his way into a party at a halls of residence by claiming he was a Master’s student.

Adam Mohammed, 24, of New Bridge Street in Exeter^[17], has been told he will spend up to eight years behind bars and remain on the Sex Offenders Register for life after he raped a student during a party in March 2021. He will serve two-thirds of his sentence in prison, before being up for release on licence. The sentencing, which has been postponed five times, took place today at Exeter Crown Court.

Mohammed was convicted of one count of rape following a trial. The court heard how the victim had been partying with friends at their halls of residence on the university campus, before feeling sick and being put to bed by her friends around midnight. They had left the door unlocked so they could check on her.

Brian Jewell has been convicted of murder (Image: Devon & Cornwall Police)

A homeless man was jailed for killing Stephen Cook during an explosion of violence in Exeter city centre. Brian Jewell was just 19 when he stabbed Mr Cook in the chest outside Betfred in Sidwell Street.

Mr Cook died of the single wound which cut into his heart. Jewell was found guilty of murder after a trial. A crucial part of the evidence was CCTV which showed the two men fighting in the street.

Prosecutors were able to secure a conviction in part due to freeze framing CCTV that revealed the moment Jewell produced his knife.

Cosmin-Nicolae Vasioiu circled in yellow can be seen following his victim down the stairs to his left (Image: Devon and Cornwall Police)

A chilling video released by Devon and Cornwall Police shows the moment a serial sex attacker identified his victim^[20] and began stalking her before raping her in an Exeter graveyard. Night prowler Cosmin-Nicolae Vasioiu, 47, was jailed for 18 years.

On the night of the attack, in June last year, CCTV caught him prowling the streets of Exeter city centre^[21] looking for a lone woman. Part one of the footage shows him lurking in the city centre as he looked to identify possible targets.

In part two he can be seen tailing his victim as she made her way home from a night out through the Iron Bridge area of Exeter. Moments later he attacked her in the grounds of St Bartholomew’s Cemetery.

Kostadin-Kostov-and-the-man-in-the-baseball-cap

One of Devon’s most notorious killers of recent years was convicted after he was filmed pulling a suitcase with a body through Exeter city centre. Kostadin Kostov, 42, killed his wife, Gergana, 38, at their flat in Mount Pleasant Road. The hotel worker’s naked body was found in a suitcase beside the railway line about a mile from their home.

The decomposing body had been disposed of with such callous disregard that it had shocked police and the local community. The jury was played extraordinary footage of a man in a baseball cap pulling a bag containing Gergana’s remains through the centre of Exeter under cover of darkness.

Police had gathered CCTV from local shops and bars and identified a man in a baseball cap dragging the case along Sidwell Street, York Road and over a zebra crossing on Pennsylvania Road. When people walked by he would hide in the shadows for a breather.

Father-and-son Alfie and Alfred Chambers seen attacking their victim at the entrance to Sainsbury’s (Image: Surrey Police handout)

A young thug got into a row with a stranger in Sainsbury’s^[24] and then enlisted his dad’s help to assault the victim with a machete and a metal baseball bat in a brutal act of revenge. In shocking footage released by police, ‘cowardly’ 23-year-old Alfie Chambers and his father, 45-year-old Alfred Chambers, can be seen raining down blows on their helpless victim. The Chambers then fled to Devon where they were arrested^[25].

The CCTV footage shows Alfie hitting the victim’s van with the baseball bat. The victim then tries to get into the Sainsbury’s store but is knocked to the ground.

Once on the ground, the furious duo bent on revenge beat the prostrate individual. Alfie, not even bothering to cover his face, follows his injured victim into the store to mete out more violence.

Amos Selahor has been jailed for violence in Devon (Image: Devon & Cornwall Police)

A dangerous thug downed ten Jagerbombs before launching a savage attack on a man in a Devon pub. Amos Selahor left his victim with fractures to his jaw, eye, nose and skull when he exploded with violence in the Snug & Hyde in Ilfracombe^[27].

As his blooded victim lay on the ground and fellow drinkers dragged him away he shouted: “I hope he’s dead.” Selahor’s brutal assault was recorded on the pub security camera.

The defendant demanded the tape be erased and said he hoped his victim was dead as he was dragged away. The CCTV was retained and helped to secure his conviction.

Nikolay Nikolov has been jailed for outraging public decency on a bus (Image: Devon & Cornwall Police)

A creepy passenger who stared at a woman and her children while fondling himself on the bus to Cullompton^[29] has been sent to prison – a year after being convicted of an almost identical offence. Nikolay Nikolov was on his way home from some unpaid work ordered by the court when he sat himself close to a family on the top deck.

The 23-year-old Bulgarian was soon staring at the woman’s breasts before shifting his perverted gaze to her three-year-old daughter. The woman told him to stop and moved seats but Nikolov followed them and carried on acting strangely.

The children told the woman that the man had exposed himself and CCTV later revealed he spent much of the journey between Exeter^[30] and Cullompton rubbing his crotch and masturbating.

Raymond Lynagh (Left) killed Dean Corbett (Right) in a horror arson attack

A man who deliberately set fire to his own flat, killing an unwanted housemate who was asleep inside, was jailed for life. Raymond Lynagh, 57, started the fire and then tampered with a gas pipe behind the oven to fuel the flames in a catastrophic revenge attack against Dean Corbett.

Exeter Crown Court heard that Lynagh wanted to get back at Mr Corbett who had ‘cuckooed’ – or taken over – his flat weeks before. He was fed up with him living there and with aspects of his behaviour.

Corbett gave police different stories about his involvement but denied starting the fire. CCTV was played to the jury which showed the movements of Corbett before and after the fire and put him in the right place at the right time.

References

1. ^ were jailed for more than 86 years (www.devonlive.com)
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