The gunman who shot nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel dead and an abusive partner who pushed his pregnant wife off a hill to her death were just two of the worst offenders sent to jail in the UK in April.
Other criminals facing lengthy jail terms include a drug addict who killed his partner's two-year-old daughter in a brutal six-hour attack and a 'dangerous' paedophile who sexually assaulted a six-year-old girl after he snatched her while she played in the park.
A father and son who murdered a thief who had been trying car doors around their housing estate, three violent armed robbers who attacked the brothers of two Premier League football stars while they ate breakfast and a landscape gardener who swung an axe into a man’s head at the pub were also locked up in April.
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These are some of the most shocking court cases that have been widely reported in the UK in recent weeks.
Thomas Cashman
The killer of nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel, who was fatally shot at her home in Liverpool, will spend more than four decades behind bars. Thomas Cashman was handed a life sentence for murder and told he must serve 42 years before becoming eligible for parole after a jury found him guilty of murder. The killer refused to attend court for his sentencing.
Cashman shot Olivia dead at her home in Dovecot, Liverpool, on August 22 last year. His trial heard how he “lay in wait” with two guns to attack Joseph Nee, 36, a convicted drug dealer.
After shooting Nee, his victim tried to escape, running towards the Korbels’ front door, opened by Olivia's mother Cheryl Korbel who had gone outside to see what was happening. As she tried to block the door on Nee, frightened Olivia ran from her bed to the stairs, shouting, “Mum, I’m scared!”
Cashman fired again, hitting Cheryl in the wrist as she tried to keep the door shut on Nee. The same bullet hit and killed her daughter, who was hiding behind her.
Cashman, 34, of Grenadier Drive, West Derby, has since lodged an appeal against his 42-year minimum jail term. A spokesman from the Attorney General’s Office said: “We have received a request for this sentence to be considered under the Unduly Lenient Sentence (ULS) scheme. The Law Officers have 28 days from sentencing to consider the case and make a decision.”
Another man has been jailed for 22 months for helping Cashman after the shooting. Paul Russell, who pleaded guilty to assisting an offender was “terrified” of Cashman and was not aware he had killed the schoolgirl when he helped him, Liverpool Crown Court heard.
Russell, of Snowberry Road, West Derby, Liverpool, admitted driving Cashman from an address in the aftermath of Olivia’s shooting. He then met police in the days after Olivia’s death and told them the man responsible was “Tommy Cashman”, the court was told.
Richard Shaw
Richard Shaw was locked up for a minimum of 30 years for the “frantic” unprovoked murder of his ex-partner’s disabled mother who he killed to “rip the heart out” of his former lover in revenge for her splitting up with him.
The 48-year-old stabbed wheelchair user Lorraine Mills, 63, a total of 48 times, including five times in her back, at her home in Southampton on November 21 last year. The defendant – who committed the fatal attack while on licence for a life sentence for three counts of rape of a 53-year-old woman in a five-hour ordeal – pleaded guilty to the murder of Ms Mills, whose body was found by her daughter and nine-year-old granddaughter.
Sentencing him at Winchester Crown Court, judge Mrs Justice Cutts told Shaw: “In a frantic and unprovoked knife attack in her own home, she was killed by you in an act of revenge on her daughter with whom you had been in a relationship and had been arguing with in the days before. You said she should know what it felt like to feel pain and you were going to rip her heart out."
The court heard that Shaw indecently assaulted Ms Mills before killing her in what the judge described as a “callous and selfish” attack. Describing Ms Mills, the judge said: “She was a much-loved and active member of her family, described as an amazing, kind person. She was a dearly loved grandmother and a sister and best friend to all.”
Shaw, of Derby Road, Southampton, also had previous convictions for stabbing the new partner of an ex in 1992 and three other offences of common assault.
Kashif Anwar
An abusive man pushed his pregnant wife off an Edinburgh landmark to her death just days before she was set to leave him. Kashif Anwar, 29, from Leeds, was found guilty of the September 2021 murder of Fawziyah Javed, 31, and that of her unborn child.
Ms Javed, who was about 17 weeks pregnant when she was pushed from Arthur’s Seat, used her dying words to reveal it was her abusive husband who caused her to fall about 50ft before her body came to a rest. A member of the public managed to reach the dying employment lawyer on the side of the hill, where she was told: “Don’t let my husband near me, he pushed me.”
Police Constable Rhiannon Clutton, 35, was told by Ms Javed that her husband did it because she “told him I wanted to end (the marriage)”. Judge Lord Beckett imposed a mandatory life sentence on Anwar with an imprisonment period of a minimum of 20 years.
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The court heard how the couple, who got married at an Islamic ceremony on December 25 2020, had checked into a hotel in Edinburgh on August 31 and were to return to Yorkshire on September 4, which would have been Ms Javed’s 32nd birthday. The trial heard she planned not to return to Anwar’s home but go to her parents’ house and contact police to retrieve her belongings.
On September 2 she was pushed to her death from the Edinburgh landmark in Holyrood Park. CCTV showed the couple walking arm-in-arm through Waverley railway station towards Arthur’s Seat and shortly after Anwar walking in front as they passed the Scottish Parliament. A selfie of the pair was taken on Ms Javed’s phone at about 8.30pm – the last picture of her alive. Shortly afterwards, she was pushed over the edge.
Tariq Dervan, Romario Harmer and Talleko Lemonious
Three violent armed robbers attacked the brothers of Premier League stars Trent Alexander-Arnold and Marcus Rashford in a terrifying raid. Tyler Alexander-Arnold was forced to hand over the keys to his £70,000 Range Rover and Dane Rashford had a sawn-off shotgun pointed at his face and his £22,000 Rolex Daytona watch snatched by the trio of masked robbers – who also carried a machete and a baseball bat.
Both men were struck to the head with the bat and needed stitches after the raid, Minshull Street Crown Court in Manchester was told. Tariq Dervan, 22, Romario Harmer, 21 and Talleko Lemonious, 28, had denied involvement, but after a trial in January each of them was convicted by a jury of five counts of robbery and three counts of possession of an offensive weapon.
Dervan, from Staffordshire, was jailed for five-and-a-half years; and Harmer, from Old Trafford, Manchester, for four years. Lemonious, from Wythenshawe, was additionally also sentenced for possession of a firearm and possession of ammunition linked to an unrelated crime. He was jailed for 18 years in total.
The court heard how the victims had been having breakfast with three other friends at the Little Rock Caribbean Cafe in Moss Side on the morning of January 12, 2019, before intending to drive to Brighton to watch a Liverpool football match. But all five were robbed after the trio burst in shouting “get your watches off”, as cafe staff fled in terror.
The robbers fled in the Range Rover – but it was fitted with a tracker and the trio were arrested by police an hour later at a house around two miles away in Fallowfield, south Manchester. At the house, police found items stolen in the robbery, including watches and wallets, along with ski masks. The sawn-off shotgun was found hidden in a nearby bush which had Harmer’s DNA on.
Daryll Pitcher
A local councillor was locked up for 27 months for raping a young girl more than 30 years ago when he was a teenager. Daryll Pitcher, who sits on Isle of Wight Council, was convicted following a trial of two charges of rape against the same girl in the early 1990s.
The two offences took place about a year apart when Pitcher was aged about 14. Sentencing Pitcher, of Wootton Bridge, the judge Recorder Richard Onslow told him: “Although at the time, you being a youth, may not have considered the implications of your actions, you are responsible for the effect of these offences on her.”
The judge added that the 46-year-old had not offended since, and acted as a carer for his elderly mother. He said: “I have read all the many letters and character references which speak highly of your personal qualities and the work you have done in the community and as a councillor.”
Following the conviction, the defendant was also put on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years. A restraining order has also been made to forbid Pitcher from contacting his victim or attending her address.
John Watson
A hospital patient caused £1.9 million worth of damage when they started a fire in an accident and emergency ward. John Watson caused extensive damage to X-ray, CT and MRI imaging suites on the ward, destroying an ultrasound machine and other equipment by setting fire to the contents of a medical trolley at Lincoln County Hospital on March 29 last year.
At the time of the hospital fire, which saw the A&E ward closed for 13 hours, the 57-year-old was under investigation for another arson which saw him set fire to a bin in Sleaford, Lincolnshire, in October 2021. No one was injured in either blaze.
After Watson refused to leave his cell for the third time to face sentencing, Judge James House KC jailed him in his absence for six years and nine months at Lincoln Crown Court and ordered him to serve five years on licence. He said: “The damage done, both physical and the knock-on impact on staff and the hospital in their ability to provide healthcare for Lincolnshire, was substantial. His conduct in starting both fires and in particular that at the hospital, created a highly dangerous situation."
Watson had been taken to the hospital in the early hours of March 29 complaining of chest pains and was triaged by staff at around 1.45am, prosecutor Annabel Lenton told the court. At around 2.55am, a fire alarm went off in the radiology unit which set seven smoke alarms off around the hospital and reached temperatures hot enough to melt light fixtures.
Watson, of Vicarage Court, Sleaford, was later seen on CCTV setting alight the contents of a medical trolley in a lab room using a naked flame, before talking to firefighters in a smoke-filled hallway. Ms Lenton said: “The fire gutted the room and the smoke did render several pieces of medical equipment inoperable. There was an insurance claim setting out the total lost but not setting out things that were replaced. The initial cost was estimated at around £180,000 but the total loss was amended to £1.9 million.”
Detective Sergeant Dave Patten from Lincoln CID, who led the investigation, said: “This was one of the most serious and reckless cases of arson we have ever dealt with; the potential for harm should that fire have escalated is unthinkable. The impact on the community and the hospital teams has been profound, with patients having to be diverted to other treatment centres, and clean up and repair work impacting the use of a busy emergency department."
Bristan William
A BMW driver caught on “shocking” CCTV footage driving at a group of brawlers in the heart of the City of London was jailed for seven years. Two men were hurt when they were hit by Bristan William’s car on Leadenhall Street on the evening of July 26 last year.
William had been seen to park his blue BMW on the pavement and go into Revolution bar at 10.45pm. 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, and sustained a ruptured ligament in the knee from the impact of the vehicle.
The car was caught on a traffic camera as William made his way home to east London. It was later traced to Wickford in Essex and linked to the incident by debris recovered from the scene.
Detective Constable Jon Forster, of City of London Police, said: “It is through sheer luck that this wasn’t a multiple-fatality incident. William used his vehicle as a weapon, driving several times into people in the street before seriously injuring his victims."
William, of Barking, east London, was arrested on August 4 2022 and went on to plead guilty to two counts of grievous bodily harm with intent and dangerous driving. He was sentenced at the Old Bailey to seven years in prison and will be disqualified from driving for five years upon his release.
Draven Jewell
A 22-year-old autistic man was handed a 20-year extended prison sentence for stabbing to death a fisherman in a “terrifying 20-second burst of violence” outside a Royal British Legion club. Draven Jewell was cleared of murdering father-of-one Max Maguire in an alleyway in Lymington in the New Forest, Hampshire, on October 22 2021, but convicted of manslaughter.
He pleaded guilty to having an offensive weapon – a Huusk chef’s knife – and, after a trial at Winchester Crown Court, was convicted of wounding Luke Gray and Georgia Hole.
Psychiatrist Dr Craig Forbes told the court Jewell’s autism means he has “difficulty understanding the emotions and perspectives of others” and a “lack of social interaction skills” – and is at risk of reoffending. This was shown by the defendant’s description of his victims as “red in the face, like they had been told off by their dad”, he said.
The judge, Mrs Justice Cutts, sentenced Jewell to 16 years in custody and four years on licence, with the term to be served in a mental health facility while treatment is ongoing. She told Jewell, from Lymington, who claimed he acted in self-defence: “Until you understand how your difficulties associated with your condition affect you, there is likely to remain a degree of dangerousness associated with it.”
Jonathan Underhill, prosecuting, said the violence happened in less than 20 seconds. He said: “There was a short burst of violence which took place in the alleyway. Max Maguire died within moments from a wound he received to the left side of his chest. This penetrated his lung and damaged a major artery internally and caused catastrophic and non-survivable injuries.”
Kyle Bevan and Sinead James
A drug addict was branded evil after being jailed for life for the brutal murder of his defenceless, two-year-old stepdaughter. Kyle Bevan, 31, will spend at least 28 years behind bars for the savage killing of little Lola James after inflicting catastrophic head injuries on the toddler during a six-hour attack.
Her injuries were so severe they were likened by doctors to a high-speed, car crash – with 101 scratches and bruises on her tiny body and evidence of weapons being used. One of the medical experts who examined Lola said she was “the most battered and bruised child” she had ever seen, Swansea Crown Court heard.
Bevan blamed the family’s pet dog for pushing Lola down the stairs of the home he shared with the girl’s mother, Sinead James, in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire. He then set about washing Lola’s body, changing her vomit and blood-stained night clothing and cleaning up the murder scene to destroy evidence of his crime rather than call an ambulance.
Bevan took photographs of marks to Lola’s back and extensive swelling and bruising to her head, eyes and lips. He also sent his mother a disturbing video showing him picking up Lola’s limp body, attempting to stand her on her feet before letting her fall to the floor – telling the camera: “She’s gone. She’s gone.”
James, 30, had gone to bed early but awoke shortly after midnight on July 17 2020 on hearing a “bang and a scream” coming from her daughter’s bedroom. Bevan reassured her everything was okay and she was asleep when he carried out the final attack on Lola. Her death came months after Bevan, a prolific drug user, moved into the home within days of connecting with James on Facebook.
Bevan had denied murdering Lola but was convicted after a trial, while James was found guilty of causing or allowing her daughter’s death. James was jailed for six years.
Lewis Jones
A dangerous paedophile sexually assaulted a six-year-old girl he snatched while playing in a park.
Lewis Jones, 24, was arrested by Merseyside Police after grooming and sexually abusing a girl, 12, he met through Snapchat in 2020, Manchester Crown Court heard. He was still under investigation two years later and free to attack a little girl who was playing with other children making a den in a park on a summer afternoon last year in Droylsden, Greater Manchester.
Jones, formerly of Brocklebank Lane, Allerton, Liverpool, was deemed a dangerous offender as he was jailed for life with a minimum of 12 years’ jail before parole by Judge Hilary Manley. He pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to four counts of sexual activity with a child and assault by penetration relating to a girl aged 12 and 13, and making indecent images of children, between January and June 2020. He also admitted two counts of assault by penetration to the six-year-old in August last year.
Passing sentence, Judge Manley said delays by police in charging and prosecuting offenders before they commit further offences is “an extremely troubling state of affairs” and this case was an “egregious example”. She said: “The net result is, in this case, this defendant, if he had been charged when he should have been, would not have been at liberty to abduct this six-year-old girl. That’s the cold facts of the case.”
Jones, whose father is a heroin and cocaine user and who has displayed “troubling” behaviour since childhood, including drowning a cat in a washing machine, visited the play area at about 4pm on August 17 last summer. Vanessa Thomson, prosecuting, told the court he first sat on a bench, furtively taking photos on his phone of female children playing nearby.
He then approached, offering to help make the den, then grabbed the girl, covering her mouth with his hand and running off. A girl, 11, realised what happened and told the other children to run for help, and shouted out for the police to be called, prompting a search to begin immediately, the court heard.
Alex Tye
A teenager was handed a 12-and-a-half-year prison sentence for stabbing a girl seven times in the back of the neck after his girlfriend broke up with him when she discovered the pair had secretly dated.
Alex Tye, 17, left a 16-year-old girl paralysed when he attacked her in a park near her home in the village of Benhall, Suffolk, at around 2am on October 2. He was sentenced to detention for life with a minimum of 12 and a half years at Ipswich Crown Court.
The court heard the victim survived by “pure chance” and the life-changing injuries mean she has very limited movement below the stab wounds. She is in rehabilitation to try to get back as much movement as possible.
The court heard how Tye messaged the victim and arranged to meet her at night in a park near her home. The court heard that the victim had jokingly asked Tye “you are not going to stab and kill me?” when she received the unexpected invitation to meet him. The pair chatted on a bench for more than an hour and kissed before Tye attacked her as they were leaving the park.
The court heard she only survived by pretending to be dead after the attack and did not scream until Tye had driven away from the scene. She lay unable to move until she was found by a dog walker around four hours later and emergency services were called. Tye had taken her phone away when he left the park.
Tye and the victim had worked together and had secretly dated despite Tye being in a relationship with another girl. After his girlfriend found out Tye was still in contact with the victim, she broke up with him days before the attack. She had suspected there was something romantic between the pair but Tye had told his ex-girlfriend the victim was “meaningless” to him. The court heard that Tye had messaged his ex-girlfriend saying “I would kill to get you back” after the pair split up.
The judge lifted reporting restrictions on the incident to allow reporters to name Tye due to the serious nature of the crime. The teenager pleaded guilty at Ipswich Crown Court in January. He also admitted possession of a bladed article.
Luke Flanagan
A van driver who was on cocaine and using TikTok crashed into a mother and daughter on their way to school. Luke Flanagan, 28, hit 55-year-old Emma van der Avoird’s Peugeot 2008 as she was taking her daughter Khiana, 16, to school before it burst into flames with the pair still inside.
Flanagan had not been paying attention to the road while driving his Ford Transit when Mrs van der Avoird’s car slowed down in front of him near Renhold in Bedfordshire.
He pleaded guilty to two counts of causing death by dangerous driving and was sentenced to five years and seven months in prison, Bedfordshire Police said. The court heard Flanagan sustained facial burns after he tried to help the victims in the car, which had been pushed underneath a heavy goods vehicle (HGV).
A drug driving test found he was three times the legal limit for cocaine, while his phone data showed he had been using TikTok. During a police interview, Flanagan claimed he had not seen the Peugeot stop as he had taken his focus away from the road when something had fallen to the floor of his van. He also said the phone was on his dashboard being used to stream music.
Flanagan has also been disqualified from driving for four years and nine months.
Wayne Peckham and Riley Peckham
A father and his son who acted “in jealous rage, like a pack of animals” were jailed for the murder of his wife’s new partner. Wayne Peckham, 48, and 23-year-old Riley Peckham attacked 39-year-old Matthew Rodwell with repeated punches, kicks and stamps, Norfolk Police said.
Both men were handed life sentences, with Wayne Peckham to serve a minimum of 24 years before he can be considered for release, the force said, while Riley Peckham must serve at least 18 years before he can be considered for parole.
Mr Rodwell was in a relationship with Wayne Peckham’s wife, Kerry Peckham, who is Riley Peckham’s mother. The two men went to her home in Bulrush Close in Downham Market, Norfolk, on January 23 last year and forced their way in, having moved CCTV cameras.
Mr Rodwell hid upstairs and made a 999 call to police, with Riley Peckham heard in the background shouting “You are going to die”. Riley Peckham and Mr Rodwell fought upstairs, while Mrs Peckham tried to restrain Wayne Peckham downstairs. But Mr Rodwell ended up at the bottom of the stairs, where the attack continued, and police arrived to find him seriously injured.
He died at the scene, with Wayne Peckham arrested immediately and Riley Peckham apprehended two hours later at a relative’s address, having fled the scene in handcuffs. Detectives established that Mr Rodwell had been threatened several times by Wayne and Riley Peckham during his relationship with Mrs Peckham.
Both men, of Manby Close, Hilgay, denied murder but were both found guilty following an earlier trial at Norwich Crown Court.
David Perry
A landscape gardener has been jailed for attempted murder after he fetched an axe from his pick-up truck and swung it into a man’s head inside a pub. David Perry, 40, “took exception” to a group, including self-employed builder Matthew Cutts, “joking and laughing about” at the Bell Hotel in Clare, Suffolk, Judge Martyn Levett said.
The judge, sentencing at Ipswich Crown Court, said Perry “took the axe, wielded it over your right shoulder with both hands, landing it into the head of Matthew Cutts” on March 19 last year. He said that if the axe had struck 1.0cm away, on a thinner section of Mr Cutts’s skull, then he was “sure there would have been some permanent brain injury or death”.
The judge said Perry, who had been drinking, had become aggressive and was ejected from the pub, before returning with the axe. He said that Mr Cutts, who is married with three children, “still struggles to find words” after the injury, and it “gets worse when he gets tired”.
Perry, of St Margarets Place, Stradishall, Suffolk, denied attempted murder but was found guilty following an earlier trial. He had admitted wounding with intent and to possessing an offensive weapon in a public place.
The judge sentenced Perry to 24 years in prison. He also made him subject of a restraining order not to contact any member of the Cutts family, and ordered that the axe be destroyed.
Aramis Sullivan and Brandon Southall
Two men were jailed for kidnapping teenagers and then ordering them to call their parents and bring them money to secure their release. Aramis Sullivan, 19, and Brandon Southall, 25, approached two young men in a McDonald’s in Northampton in August 2021 and intimidated them into leaving, before making them drive to Coventry under threats of harm and demanding £1,000 from relatives to secure their release, Northamptonshire Police.
The victims managed to raise £500 from relatives and friends before being forced to bank transfer and withdraw the remaining £500, then being made to drive around for six hours – travelling to Birmingham and then back to Northampton – and only escaping when Sullivan and Southall got out of the car.
It came a day after Sullivan, 19, and another man, who was not named by police, threatened a 17-year-old boy on a Northampton footbridge and made his mother travel to a secluded wooded area to pay £200 to secure her son’s release.
Southall, formerly of Birmingham, was handed a combined 11-year prison sentence for two counts of kidnap and two of blackmail, as well as other robbery, theft and drug offences, dating back to 2019. He was also sentenced for making indecent images of children and was placed on the sex offenders’ register for seven years.
Sullivan, formerly of Luton, had been sentenced to six years and three months in February at the same court for three counts of blackmail, two of kidnap, and others of attempted robbery, robbery and fraud relating to previous offences.
Steven Allan
A man has been jailed for drunkenly attacking and killing a respected international banker after he left The Ivy Club in London’s West End. “Kind and gentle” Paul Mason, 52, a boss at Qatar National Bank, was set upon in the street near the exclusive private members’ club in Soho, on the evening of December 15 in 2020.
Electrician Steven Allan, who had been out drinking with a colleague, punched Mr Mason three times in the mistaken belief that he had stolen a mobile phone belonging to his friend. The incident took just 12 seconds and was captured on CCTV viewed by jurors in Allan’s trial.
The Old Bailey had heard that Mr Mason did not react with any violence or aggression and had attempted to “turn the other cheek” and walk away when approached by Allan. When Allan delivered an upper cut, Mr Mason was “poleaxed”, flew back and landed on his back with his head hitting the pavement.
Prosecutor Jane Bickerstaff KC said the defendant was “aggressive and seemed to want to continue fighting” even as Mr Mason lay “gravely injured”. According to one witness, Allan had shouted: “Where’s your fight now, show me your fight now.” Mr Mason suffered serious head injuries from which he died six months later.
Allan, 35, from Hook in Hampshire, had admitted the manslaughter and was cleared of the more serious offence of murder after a trial. At his sentencing hearing, Mr Mason’s family blamed Allan for a double tragedy as they told how his vulnerable brother took an overdose three months after his death.
Jailing Allan for three years and nine months, Judge Michael Topolski KC said: “The circumstances that led to the defendant causing the death of a perfectly respectable, wholly innocent stranger who happened to be passing by are as extraordinary as they are tragic. The sudden and exceptional nature of the circumstances that led to his death have, I am sure, significantly exacerbated the family’s feelings of disbelief, distress and anger at the nature of his passing.”
Arthur Hawrylewicz
A man tried to kill a stranger by grabbing her in a bear hug to throw her in front of an oncoming Tube train. Arthur Hawrylewicz, 42, pleaded guilty to attempting to murder then 22-year-old Maria Osifeso on August 29 last year, as she travelled to Notting Hill carnival in London with friends.
Prosecutor Suki Dhadda said the pharmacist was waiting at the platform of King’s Cross Underground station at about 1.15pm when “she felt arms wrap around her waist in a bear hug-style grip”. She told the court: “She was then picked up by someone, her feet left the floor and she was swung to the left, she thought in an attempt to put her on the track or in front of the train which was pulling into the station.”
Inner London Crown Court heard how she was saved by friends, including Constantinos Spyrou, who got between them and forced Hawrylewicz on to the ground, where he moved like a “fish in a bellyflop movement”, hitting his head on the train and being knocked unconscious.
Father-of-two Hawrylewicz, originally from Poland, had lived in the UK, where he worked in the construction industry, for 15 years and had been in London for work. The court heard his young family had returned to Poland in August 2021 and messages indicated he was “depressed” about his life. Hawrylewicz told police he had drunk up to four beers and a third of a litre of vodka before the attack, and thought of committing suicide.
Judge Benedict Kelleher sentenced Hawrylewicz, of Avondale Gardens, Cardiff, to 10 years imprisonment on Monday, telling him he will serve up to two-thirds of the term in custody.
The judge said: “It is clear from the available evidence you intended to kill yourself that day but there is nothing to explain why you chose to try to kill an innocent bystander.”
David King and Edward King
A father and son who murdered a thief who had been trying car doors around their housing estate were both handed life sentences. Tesco worker Edward King, 20, left his house with a two-foot-long sword after he saw on CCTV a person trying car doors and giving the thumbs up, Ipswich Crown Court heard.
His father David King, 56 – who worked for construction firm Morgan Sindall – armed himself with a dagger and left their home in Radnor Close, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, around a minute after his son. Thief Neil Charles, 47, was fatally stabbed by the dagger, and sliced across the knee by the sword, in the early hours of June 20, 2021, prosecutor Richard Kelly said.
He described it as “vigilante behaviour” by the father and son, and “revenge or retaliation”. The prosecutor said that the pair had been “looking to exact violence upon a local thief”. Mr Charles died in hospital on June 22, Suffolk Police said.
Mr Kelly said there were attempts to cover up Edward King’s involvement in what happened. Both defendants had denied murder, but were found guilty following an earlier trial. Judge Martyn Levett sentenced David King, who inflicted the fatal wound, to life in prison with a minimum term of 21 years, which he must serve before he can be considered for release. He sentenced Edward King, who was just 18 at the time of the killing, to life in prison with a minimum term of 19 years.
Police said they had received a 999 call from David King at around 3.55am on June 20 stating a man had been trying to steal from his car on the Moreton Hall estate. King told the call taker that he had tried to apprehend the man who had run off, admitting he had a knife in his hand and the man claimed he was injured by this before he ran away, Suffolk Police said.
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