A mother and father who left their morbidly obese teenage daughter in bed-ridden squalor and a reality star who shared a private sex video featuring his ex-girlfriend were just some of the worst offenders sent to jail in the UK in March.
Other offenders facing lengthy jail terms include Sarah Everard's killer Wayne Couzens, who has been sentenced for a series of flashing incidents, and a man who murdered another man by hitting him with a horseshoe.
A police community support officer, who committed a “campaign of voyeurism” in swimming pool changing rooms, and a woman who falsely claimed to have been the victim of a grooming gang were also locked up in March.
READ MORE: Man left toddler with life-changing brain injury after 'deliberately shaking' her
These are some of the most shocking court cases that have been widely reported in the UK in recent weeks.
Alun Titford and Sarah Lloyd-Jones
A mother and father who left their morbidly obese teenage daughter in bed-ridden squalor were locked up for gross negligence manslaughter on March 1. Kaylea Titford was found in conditions described as “unfit for any animal”, in soiled clothing and bed linen, following her death at the family home in Newtown, Powys.
Kaylea, who had spina bifida and used a wheelchair, died after suffering inflammation and infection from ulceration, arising from obesity and immobility. Swansea Crown Court heard the 16-year-old weighed 22st 13lb, with a BMI of 70, at the time of her death in October 2020.
Kaylea's mum Sarah Lloyd-Jones, 40, was imprisoned for six years, while her dad, Alun Titford, 45, was told he would spend seven years and six months behind bars.
The court heard that in her last hours, as Kaylea lay screaming in bed, her father texted her twice telling her to stop but did not go and see her. Kaylea had also sent a series of text messages to her mother pleading for help to clean the weeping sores on her legs and get rid of the flies landing on her, Lloyd-Jones replied, “For f*** sake.”
READ MORE: Dad text morbidly obese daughter 'stop screaming' on night she died alone
Emergency service workers, who were called to the house after she was found dead, described feeling sick due to a “rotting” smell in her room, while maggots were feeding on her body. The teenager’s specially adapted room was dirty and cluttered, with bottles of urine near her bed and dog faeces in the en-suite bathroom.
Titford, who had denied manslaughter by gross negligence, told his trial he had let his daughter down so badly because he was “lazy” – leaving his partner to look after her. Care worker Lloyd-Jones, who had six children with Titford, had previously admitted the same charge. Passing sentence, Mr Justice Griffiths said the pair had committed “shocking and prolonged neglect over lockdown”.
Stephen Bear
Reality star Stephen Bear was jailed for sharing a private sex video featuring his ex-girlfriend Georgia Harrison on his OnlyFans page. Ms Harrison, who said she stands in solidarity with other victims of revenge porn following his sentencing, waived her right to anonymity to speak out about her ordeal.
Bear, 33, captured the video on CCTV cameras in his garden on August 2 2020. A court heard how the pair had had consensual sex at his home in Loughton, Essex, but Ms Harrison, 28, did not know they were being recorded. Ms Harrison said that when Bear showed her the footage she told him “never to send” it to anyone and “made it plain how upset she would be if he did”, prosecutor Jacqueline Carey KC said.
Bear sent the footage to someone on WhatsApp later that day, and later that year Ms Harrison was made aware that it was circulating online, the court heard. Ms Carey said that Bear uploaded the footage “either himself or had it uploaded to OnlyFans and profited financially”.
The former roofer, who also appeared on Ex On The Beach, denied all charges but was found guilty of voyeurism and of two counts of disclosing private sexual photographs and films with intent to cause distress. He was jailed for 21 months, ordered to sign the Sex Offenders’ Register, will be subject to notification requirements for 10 years, and was made subject to a restraining order not to contact Ms Harrison for five years.
As he walked to Chelmsford Crown Court for his sentencing hearing, Bear stopped to ask people if they wanted to take a selfie with him. He also told reporters that his trial was not fair and sang Lady In Red to a journalist trying to interview him.
Wayne Couzens
Sarah Everard's killer has been sentenced for a series of flashing incidents that took place before he kidnapped, raped and murdered the 33-year-old Londoner in March 2021. The former Met Police officer is already serving a whole-life prison term, and has now been handed 19 months for the sexual offences.
Couzens, 50, was supposed to be on duty and working from home when he exposed himself to a female cyclist in a country lane in Kent in November 2020. He then went on to expose himself to female attendants at a McDonald’s drive-through in Swanley, Kent, twice in February 2021 – the last incident just days before he snatched Ms Everard in south London.
Couzens pleaded guilty to three charges of indecent exposure, with three further counts to lie on court file. Ms Everard’s mother Susan attended court by video-link to see her daughter's killer sent down for the crimes.
READ MORE: Wayne Couzens jailed for flashing at women days before murdering Sarah Everard
During the Old Bailey hearing, Couzens’ victims questioned whether Ms Everard could have been saved if police had arrested him for indecent exposure sooner. The female cyclist said: “Four months after you exposed yourself to me, you raped and murdered an innocent woman. There were opportunities to identify you and they were not taken. I did not feel that, when I reported your crime, it was taken as seriously as I felt that it should have been."
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stuart Cundy, who leads the Met’s Directorate of Professional Standards, apologised. He said: “I have read the victim impact statements and it is clear to me the hurt and trauma that he inflicted on them. It is their courage that has been crucial in bringing him to justice and I am sorry for what they have gone through. Like so many, I wish he had been arrested for these offences before he went on to kidnap, rape and murder Sarah Everard and I am sorry that he wasn’t.”
Junaid Sulaiman and Rayhan Ali
Two men killed a furloughed travel agent who once featured in a knife crime documentary. Junaid Sulaiman, 22, and Rayhan Ali, 20, were cleared of murder but found guilty of manslaughter.
Abiola Akerele, who was also a rapper known as Nayta, had resorted to selling cannabis after being laid off during the pandemic. The 28-year-old was stabbed to death on grass outside his home in East Ham, east London, on December 29 2020.
At the Old Bailey, Sulaiman was jailed for nine years while Ali was sentenced to four years in a young offenders’ institution, with an extended licence period of two years for both of them. Two other defendants were cleared of all charges at the end of the trial.
During the trial, the court heard that the defendants’ group had gone to the victim’s home, having arranged to buy cannabis. There was a commotion and shouts as hooded males with their faces covered kicked, punched and stabbed Mr Akerele as he crouched down to protect himself. He was helped inside by his girlfriend but died at the scene.
Mr Akerele featured in the BBC Panorama documentary On A Knife Edge, about gang violence, when he was a teenager in 2007. In the film, his mother, Abimbola, spoke about her fears for her sons and Mr Akerele described witnessing the build-up to one killing.
Ashley Loveday
A man driving a stolen van killed a 21-year-old woman who had been out with work colleagues when he drove it the wrong way down a major arterial road at high speed. Ashley Loveday, 39, was behind the wheel of a Peugeot Boxer van when he crashed into an Uber taxi on the A13 in east London on November 25 last year.
Grace Payne, 21, a passenger in the Toyota Prius Uber vehicle, was killed in the collision. The driver of the Uber, Sundar Ali, 59, was seriously injured but survived.
Loveday, who was found to have cocaine in his system, routinely sped that evening at 85mph in 30 and 40 mph zones, up to 97mph in another 30mph zone and at between 70mph and 90mph in a 50mph zone on the A13 while travelling into oncoming traffic. He also drove through red lights and pedestrian crossings
Loveday pleaded guilty to causing Ms Payne’s death and causing serious injury to Mr Ali by his dangerous driving. He also admitted to aggravated vehicle taking of the van on or before November 22 last year. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison for causing death by dangerous driving and to two years and eight months imprisonment each for the other charges, to run concurrently, and will serve two-thirds of the sentence before he is released on licence.
Ms Payne’s parents paid tribute to their daughter, who they described as a “caring, compassionate, bright, funny, bubbly” person, in a victim impact statement, saying the death had left the family devastated. “We are struggling to come to terms with the fact that our daughter will never be coming home,” the statement added.
The court heard that Loveday had been before the courts since he was 16, having been convicted of 81 offences on 54 occasions between 2000 and 2022. At the time of the offence, he did not have a driving licence, was uninsured to drive the van and was wanted for breaching court orders.
Matthew Shaw
A police community support officer, who committed a “campaign of voyeurism” in swimming pool changing rooms, caused young girls worldwide to engage in sex acts, including involving animals, a court heard in March.
Matthew Shaw videoed children believed to be as young as six in swimming pool changing rooms and a Center Parcs in Nottinghamshire, and admitted to police he may have done it around 100 times. He also spoke to seven girls – aged between 11 and 15 – from locations including the United States, Australia, Wales and Derbyshire while posing as both a teenage girl and boy, asking for and sending sexual images and videos on Snapchat.
During the conversations, the 38-year-old father-of-two, a PCSO in Derbyshire for 15 years, incited one victim to perform sexual acts on a dog and attempted to incite others to perform acts involving their younger siblings. Nottingham Crown Court heard how he first contacted his victims as a girl named Chloe before introducing a “brother”, falsely named Matt, to the victims.
Shaw was first arrested last April when a 10-year-old girl noticed a GoPro filming her while she was changing at the Lammas Leisure Centre in Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, prosecutor Robert Underwood told the court. Police later found 25 recordings of children taken in changing rooms at the Lammas Leisure Centre and the Rebecca Adlington Swimming Centre in Mansfield on a seized phone, dating back to October 2021.
He was arrested again on August 31, with Derbyshire Police confirming he had been suspended the next day. In a police interview, he said that he had potentially committed around 100 voyeurism offences but denied having a sexual attraction to children.
Shaw pleaded guilty last December to nine counts of causing a child under 13 to engage in a sexual act, 12 of causing a child to engage in a sexual act, and three counts of voyeurism. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison for the 24 offences.
Eleanor Williams
A 22-year-old woman falsely claimed to have been the victim of an Asian grooming gang. Eleanor Williams, of Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years in jail after making a series of false rape allegations.
In a Facebook post in May 2020, which was shared more than 100,000 times, she described being beaten, abused and trafficked by Asian men. She also posted pictures of her injuries, but the court heard that she had caused them to herself, with a hammer.
In January, a jury found Williams guilty of eight counts of doing acts tending and intended to pervert the course of justice. She pleaded guilty to a ninth count at an earlier hearing.
Honorary Recorder of Preston Judge Robert Altham told the court there was no explanation for why Williams made the allegations, which he described as “complete fiction”. He added: “Unless and until the defendant chooses to say why she has told these lies we will not know.”
In statements read to the court, three of the men Williams had accused described attempts to take their own life following her allegations. She claimed that one of her victims had groomed her from the age of 12, put her to work in brothels in Amsterdam, and sold her at an auction there.
Leila Borrington
A stepmother jailed for manslaughter filmed her autistic three-year-old stepson as he lay dying from a brain injury. Leila Borrington killed Harvey Borrington by slapping him “multiple times” around the head, having committed two other attacks in the previous four months which left him with a broken arm and marks on his face.
Nottingham Crown Court was told Borrington, 23, lied about what had happened to Harvey, who had severe non-verbal autism, when paramedics arrived at her home in Jacksdale, near Kirkby-in-Ashfield, in August 2021. Borrington also delayed calling emergency services after inflicting “unsurvivable” injuries, including a skull fracture, on Harvey, instead sending a text message to the boy’s father reading: “Why does this happen to me?” She claimed Harvey “fell backwards” off a one-seater leather sofa at home, causing the fatal brain bleed.
The trial was shown video footage shot on Borrington’s phone and sent to Harvey’s father of Harvey playing with his toys and placing items into the dishwasher. Further video footage taken less than 30 minutes later showed Harvey unconscious on the living room floor, the judge said. Harvey, who spent most weekends with Borrington, died in hospital on August 9, two days after paramedics were called and found him “deeply unconscious”, “unresponsive” and with “abnormal body posture”, the court heard.
Borrington was acquitted of murder and found guilty of manslaughter and separate charges of assault and causing grievous bodily harm to Harvey, relating to incidents in April and July 2021. Mr Justice Nicklin jailed her for 15 years.
Wayne Rule
A convicted killer who murdered his neighbour and attempted to kill his former housemate before a stand-off with armed police was handed two life sentences. Wayne Rule has been locked up for a second time and will now serve a minimum of 35 years in prison.
The father-of-two stabbed 51-year-old Darren Kirk to death less than an hour after he had attempted to kill his friend, Mark Stone, in Spalding, Lincolnshire, in the early hours of December 20 in 2021. During a stand-off with armed police before his arrest, Rule boasted about killing Pc Jon Odell in December 2000, for which he was jailed for nine years for manslaughter, Lincoln Crown Court heard.
Prosecutor Paul Cavin KC said that at around 1.10am on the day of the murder, Rule forced his way into the flat of Mr Kirk, his downstairs neighbour, and "herded" him into the kitchen. Rule fatally stabbed him multiple times in front of his partner before leaving the knife, bent out of shape, in the hallway.
Mr Justice Picken said Mr Kirk's partner had to watch him be killed, and could not help despite his pleading as Rule had threatened to kill her too. Less than an hour before the murder, Rule had attempted to kill his friend Mr Stone by stabbing him 12 times, believing he had had an affair with his former partner.
Rule, who has 21 convictions for 71 offences, was due to stand trial but pleaded guilty to murder and attempted murder beforehand. The judge said the case was not suitable for a whole life order. Rule will serve a life sentence with a minimum of 35 years for the murder of Mr Kirk, and a concurrent life sentence, with a minimum of 14 years, for the attempted murder.
Daniel White
A serial domestic abuser was jailed for life for murdering his wife – after Alexa voice recordings helped bring him to justice.
Daniel White, 36, kicked open Angie White’s locked bedroom door and strangled her before cutting her throat with a Stanley knife. He then fled the house in Swansea in his wife’s car and hours later phoned police to confess to murder. Officers went to their home in Idris Terrace, Plasmarl, and discovered the front door unlocked and the body of Mrs White, 45, in her bedroom.
Swansea Crown Court heard that White, a labourer, had a long history of domestic violence, including against Mrs White. At the time of the murder, he was on licence from prison after receiving a 10-year extended sentence for rape and assault.
Fearful of her husband, Mrs White had recently installed a mortis lock on her bedroom door, which White kicked in after an argument started on WhatsApp. Neighbours heard banging, shouting and screaming at about 3am on October 22 last year before hearing a front door and a car drive away. Shortly before 6am, White called police, telling a call handler: “She’s in the house, she’s dead. I’ve strangled her and cut her throat. She’s dead."
READ MORE: Man jailed after Alexa recordings helped convict him of murdering wife
The court heard the couple had an Amazon Alexa device, which can control household electrical items when activated by a voice prompt. Detectives discovered voice commands made by White and his wife at the time of the murder had been stored in the Cloud, which led them to build a timeline of the murder.
White previously admitted murder but refused to attend court for sentencing. He was handed a life sentence with a minimum term of 20 years and 10 months.
Andrew Measor and Stefanos Cantaris
A cash-in-transit driver handcuffed himself to his security van’s steering wheel in a faked armed heist of almost £1 million. Andrew Measor, 51, waited for two hours before using his nose to dial for help after helping mastermind Stefanos Cantaris, 40, steal £920,000 in banknotes.
Southwark Crown Court heard Measor, who had worked for cash-handling firm Loomis for three years, was the “inside man” in the fake armed robbery in Ilford, east London, on December 30 2021. CCTV footage of the incident shows masked men loading chequered laundry bags filled with cash into a white Vauxhall Combo van during the theft.
Measor handcuffed himself to his security van’s steering wheel and waited for two hours to raise the alarm at the depot in Dagenham, east London. The driver claimed he was “raided” after a man armed with a gun approached him as he left his home and said: “I know everything that goes on. Just do as I say and everything will be OK.”
To bolster the claim, a “charade” of the so-called “Tiger kidnap”, involving a man wearing a latex mask, was carried out outside his front door and captured on his doorbell camera. Judge Dafna Spiro told them: “This was not, as you say, a Tiger kidnap. It was a well-planned, sophisticated, heavily orchestrated theft in which you, Mr Measor, were a willing participant and you, Mr Cantaris, organised, planned and supervised. You were both in this together.”
Measor, from Loughton, Essex, was found guilty of conspiracy to commit theft and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice last month after a trial. Cantaris, from Epping, Essex, pleaded guilty to theft and was found guilty of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. Measor was locked up for four years and 10 months, and Cantaris was jailed for five years and four months.
They were both cleared of conspiracy to launder money, which has not been recovered. Five other men were cleared of having any involvement in the plot.
Gary Campbell
Gary Campbell directed the rape and sexual assault of young girls in the Philippines from his home in Scotland. The 59-year-old, from the remote village of Lochinver in Sutherland, paid for abuse to be carried out by adults as he watched and recorded it on the internet.
The former retained firefighter – who also worked for Scottish Water – admitted sexual abuse charges involving children as young as four. No child was older than 13. He was traced by cybercrime investigators through online payments he made to foreign accounts.
Campbell was personally involved in the abuse and just as responsible for it as his fellow perpetrators in the Philippines, known in law as “art and part” guilt, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal (COPFS) said. He was convicted under legislation which protects children anywhere in the world from sexual abuse by British nationals.
COPFS said Campbell was tracked to his home in the Highlands after an international investigation into the live-streaming of child sex assaults by abusers in the Philippines. Over Skype, Campbell initiated serious sexual assaults and rape, demanded the victims were very young, negotiated online payments and issued explicit instructions as children were assaulted.
Campbell, who had since moved to Perth, pled guilty to 13 charges at the High Court in Edinburgh. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison, and given a three-year sentence extension, during which he will be subject to close supervision.
Zara Jade
A transgender woman stabbed her partner before tying her up and leaving with her bank card. Zara Jade has been told she will serve her sentence in a male prison after being jailed for nine years with an additional three years on licence.
Jade pleaded guilty to six offences including false imprisonment, assault and robbery, West Yorkshire Police said. The 54-year-old was sentenced on at Bradford Crown Court after the attack at a Halifax flat last August.
Police said Jade stabbed her partner with a small knife and falsely imprisoned her while demanding her card’s pin before leaving her restrained while she went to a cash machine to withdraw cash. Officers were informed when a scheduled visit from a nurse to the victim uncovered substantial injuries inflicted by Jade, the force said.
Jade received a 12-year sentence – nine years behind bars and three on licence. She was also given an indefinite restraining order banning her from having any contact with the victim, police added.
New rules banning some transgender women from female prisons in England and Wales came into force last month. Dominic Raab initially announced the measures in October affecting trans women who have male genitalia or have committed sexual offences. The Justice Secretary later confirmed in February that he had also updated the policy to include transgender women convicted of violent offences as part of the ban.
Gary Bennett
A “controlling” man who murdered his partner who was about to leave him has been sentenced to life in prison and must serve 21 years before he can be considered for release. The body of 30-year-old Madison Wright was found in Wat Tyler Country Park in Pitsea, Essex, on July 30 last year, eight days after she was last seen, Basildon Crown Court was told.
Gary Bennett, 37, of Caister Drive, Pitsea, denied her murder but was found guilty by jurors after two-and-a-half hours of deliberation, Essex Police said. The force said he was sentenced at the same court to life in prison with a minimum term of 21 years.
Tracy Ayling KC, opening the prosecution case, had told jurors that Ms Wright was last seen on July 22. Ms Wright worked as a cleaner and attended an appointment cleaning a client’s house, where she was booked from 9am to 11am that day, the prosecutor said. A Ring doorbell camera filmed her leaving the appointment and an ANPR (automatic number plate recognition) camera recorded her car travelling towards Bennett’s address, the court heard.
In text messages read to the court by the prosecutor, Ms Wright had told Bennett on the morning of July 22 “you’re too controlling”. Ms Wright also told Bennett: “I’ve not been happy for ages – we’ve had lots of chances to try to make it work but I just don’t think it is.”
She said Bennett killed Ms Wright then sent text messages to suggest she had gone away. The prosecutor said Bennett went to a pawnbroker’s shop in Grays, Essex and sold a necklace that Ms Wright was wearing that day for £310.
Ms Wright’s body was found “covered in a pile of shrubs and branches and a fence panel” at the park.
Kirkpatrick Virgo
Kirkpatrick Virgo was jailed for more than 21 years for murdering a man with a horseshoe after an argument on a train. Thomas Parker, 24, was struck on the head by the 42-year-old after the pair argued over loud music from a boombox speaker on an Elizabeth Line train.
Virgo, from Slough, was sentenced to 21 years and 123 days in jail at Reading Crown Court.
The victim’s father Steven Parker described how “everything went black” as he saw his son lying on the platform at Reading station. He said: “Tom had a lovely personality and always had a smile on his face. He was very clever and had lots of friends, Tom did not have a bad bone in his body. I would describe him as a lover not a fighter."
READ MORE: 'We couldn't hug or help our son as he lay dying in front of us in a train station'
The court heard that Virgo was a father of four and had five previous convictions for crimes such as drink-driving, and on another occasion he was found with crack cocaine and heroin. He was found guilty by jurors after three hours and 49 minutes of deliberation.
The row on the train began when Thomas' brother Craig Parker, 27, told one of Virgo’s friends to turn the music down at about 11pm on July 30 last year. The two groups shouted at each other before the altercation was ended by off-duty police officers.
Virgo then followed the brothers when the train arrived at Reading. The court heard that he followed the group, removing a heavy metallic horseshoe from his rucksack, which he used to hit Thomas Parker on the head.
He was then chased by Craig Parker who tackled his brother’s killer, and the pair were separated by security. Despite the efforts of emergency services, Thomas Parker was pronounced dead at 12.40am.
David Redfern
A “cowardly bully” has been jailed for life with a minimum of 14 years in prison for murdering a 71-year-old woman who mistook his home for a B&B and got into his bed.
Grandmother Margaret Barnes had been visiting Barmouth in Wales from her home in Birmingham when she mistook her accommodation for the home of David Redfern, a few doors away, Caernarfon Crown Court heard.
After Redfern, 46, and his partner discovered her when they went up to bed, a row broke out and Mrs Barnes, who had been drinking, was dragged by her heels down the stairs and flung out of the house.
Redfern also kicked or stamped on the frail pensioner, breaking three of her ribs and causing a catastrophic and unsurvivable injury to her liver. The “much-loved” wife, mother and grandmother died on the pavement outside, the court heard.
READ MORE: Gran, 71, mistook home for her B&B - it cost her her life
Redfern denied murdering Mrs Barnes on July 11 last year but was convicted by a jury. Handing him a mandatory life sentence for murder with a minimum 14 years before parole, Mr Justice Charles Bourne told the defendant: “I accept you must have been very shocked to find a stranger in your house, your bedroom. But your reaction surpasses anything that any reasonable person could imagine."
Earlier, the court heard that arrangements had been made with a local B&B for Mrs Barnes to stay in Barmouth and she had been out drinking with friends and was unsteady on her feet. She mistook her accommodation for Redfern’s home and went inside and got in bed at around 10.10pm on July 10 last year.
When Redfern and his partner went upstairs to bed, around 40 minutes later, Redfern at first calmly called police and asked officers to come and remove her. But things then went “terribly wrong” after a row broke out, the court heard. Redfern, a 6ft 1in man who weighed 21 stone, dragged the unwanted visitor downstairs by her heels and flung her suitcase into the street. He also kicked or stamped on Mrs Barnes, causing the fatal injury.
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