A thug who shot at a group outside a pub on Christmas Eve, two parents who caused the death of their five-month-old and a gun-crazed cop killer are among the criminals locked up over the last month
The gunman who murdered beautician Elle Edwards outside a pub on Christmas Eve and the cop killer who fatally wounded Sergeant Matt Ratana in a police custody cell were just two of the worst offenders sent to jail in the UK in July.
Saju Chelavalel, 52, killed NHS nurse Anju Asok while he was drunk last December, in the mistaken belief that she had been unfaithful to him. Northampton Crown Court was told Chelavalel had more than four hours “to reflect on whether to kill his children” before using a dressing gown cord to kill six-year-old son Jeeva Saju and their daughter Janvi Saju, aged four.
Connor Chapman The gunman who killed a 26-year-old beautician when he opened fire outside a pub on Christmas Eve will spend at least 48 years behind bars for her murder. He sentenced Chapman to two concurrent life sentences, with a minimum term of 22 years, for the attempted murder of his intended targets Duffy and Salkeld. Nigel Power KC, prosecuting, said the murder was the culmination of a gang feud in Wirral, where there had been nine shootings in 2022.
In a folder on her phone labelled “Hidden”, she stored images, including of a black eye and cuts to her face, taken after Hasan was violent in February and April 2022 and 11 days before she died. On May 9, she sent a “desperate” WhatsApp message to friends saying “he would have killed me” if they had been alone in the house.
Pallett kicked, punched and headbutted the victim, leaving him with 14 rib fractures and internal injuries. Mr Potter, 39, who was 6ft tall but weighed less than eight stone, died from the “sustained and violent” attack, jurors were told. After the attack, Pallett was accused of editing out footage, although he denied it. Pallett had claimed he acted in self defence and did not intend to kill his stepbrother, who had mental health problems.
Barrow was unanimously convicted of murder by a jury after previously admitting manslaughter. He claimed to have believed the flat to be empty at the time he lit the fire by pouring petrol siphoned from his motorbike through his victims’ letterbox. At his trial, jurors were shown distressing CCTV footage of the 26-year-old using a legally-bought revolver to gun down the sergeant. Sgt Ratana died in hospital despite the efforts of medical staff, after being struck by two bullets in the holding cell in Croydon, south London, in September 2020.
His three-week trial was shown slow-motion video of New Zealand-born Sgt Ratana being hit in the chest by the first of three shots discharged within three seconds. A second bullet struck the 54-year-old in the thigh before De Zoysa was wrestled to the ground by other officers, as a third round hit the cell wall at Croydon’s Windmill Road custody centre.
Spence-Robinson, from Enfield, was charged with murder after arriving at Heathrow Airport on a flight from Canada on February 15 last year. He claimed he supplied Mr McMillan with a “nine bar” of cannabis and he had been paid for some but not all of the drugs. He accepted he caused the injury that led to Mr McMillan’s death but claimed he acted in lawful self-defence.
Piers Le Cheminant A retired teacher has been put behind bars for sexually assaulting boys at the prestigious Salisbury Cathedral School and another boarding school. Piers Le Cheminant was convicted of 10 indecent assaults against nine boys over a 21-year period. As well as being jailed for nine years, Le Cheminant was given a lifelong sexual harm prevention order and ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register.
Collard, of Stafford, and Grocott, of Stone, were found guilty of causing or allowing the death of a child, causing or allowing serious physical harm to a child, and two counts of assaulting, ill-treating, neglecting or abandoning a child or young person to cause unnecessary suffering or injury on July 18.
Marius Mihai Draghici, 50, fled the country and was detained by police in Romania last August and extradited back to the UK. Last month, he pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey to 39 counts of manslaughter and conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration. Shane Nash A man raped a schoolgirl and was later identified by police due to his distinctive walk. Shane Nash will serve life with a minimum term of 15 years in prison after he attacked his victim as she walked home from a bus stop in Nottingham in January this year.
Nash, formerly of Bestwood in Nottingham, was arrested but denied rape, despite DNA evidence linking him to the victim. He later pleaded guilty to rape and attempted rape in March 2023. He was left to die in the street from the injuries inflicted by Veadhesa, who, along with Shergill, fled the scene after realising they had stabbed the wrong person and disposed of the weapons and the clothing they had been wearing.
The first victim reported being assaulted between 1969 and 1970 when McCleester was a child welfare supervisor at a boarding school in Hampshire. Webb, whose temper was described by the victim as a “nuclear bomb anger”, was also convicted of causing actual bodily harm while both defendants were found not guilty of fraud by false representation and theft. The court was told that the pair, from Bognor Regis, West Sussex, neglected, abused and exploited 40-year-old Mr Somerset-How, who was left bed-bound and malnourished.
The judge described how the defendants mocked Mr Somerset-How’s disability by comparing him to the movie alien ET and said he had suffered “serious psychological harm”. He said that Webb exploited Mr Somerset-How with the aim of saving up money to pay for a music studio for his ambition to become a DJ.
Ms Jules-Hough, 17 weeks pregnant with her first daughter, Neeve, suffered unsurvivable brain injuries. Her daughter died with her when she passed away two days later in hospital surrounded by her family, having never regained consciousness. The pair, in their 40s, died after unknowingly consuming the opioid, which is of a 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.
Forensic examiners linked Hanniford-Brown to the scene through a bloodied handprint, the Metropolitan Police said. Arbab Yusuf, Muhammad Ashraf, Kieron Millar, Robert Crookes and Lynette Myers Members of a gang who tortured and murdered a father-of-one have been locked up after a judge described the suffering inflicted on the victim as “difficult to imagine”.
Millar and a sixth defendant, Lynette Myers, 39, of Hounsfield Crescent, Rotherham, were found guilty of grievous bodily harm with intent and false imprisonment. Another car travelling behind Mr Woodcock’s, which had family of three inside, was also hit, leaving them with minor injuries. After his arrest, Head’s internet search history revealed multiple searches for Brighton student nights and nightclub opening times across East Sussex and Surrey. His car contained latex gloves, condoms, Viagra tablets and a balaclava, while his mobile phone was in flight mode.
Muhammad Khan, 24, was found guilty of Mr Ugwa’s murder and of affray following an earlier trial. 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”.
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