Families often love to spend time together. Whether it's a holiday or weekend away, a day out shopping, or just a relaxed catch-up, there are plenty of different ways loved ones can do something together.
Some families and couples, though, choose to break the law together. And whether or not they live together on the outside it can mean, in some cases, they end up sharing accommodation afterwards if they both end up behind bars.
We've taken a look back at the families and couples who have been caught breaking the law together in Wales and what's happened to them. Their crimes range from major financial scams to drug dealers and sex abuse as well as a whole host of other offences.
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Here are their crimes:
The McCann Family
The father and son cannabis dealers moved to Wales to set up a multi-million-pound family-run drugs business. Wife and mother Linda had already been jailed for six years and nine months for her part in the enterprise when they came to be sentenced for their roles.
Dad Edward and son Daniel were already running a successful cannabis operation in Hampshire when they decided to relocate across the border to expand their business. After spending months searching for just the right property they bought an isolated house with large outbuilding in Carmarthenshire and set about transforming it into a production and distribution centre. The McCanns had been in business in their new home for some five years before police sniffed out the operation and raided the site and prosecutors said they believed it may have been worth up to £3.5m over that time.
The Osbourn family
The fraudulent family of mother and sons property developers were jailed earlier this month for conning investors out of more than £1.5m. Audrey Osbourn and her sons Gary, Clayton, and Ian Moore funnelled money which people entrusted them with into keep their sinking firm afloat and into paying their own mortgages and general household bills. Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court heard many of those the defendants scammed were friends and all have suffered huge financial and emotional damage. The defendants had previously been handed suspended sentences for their fraudulent activities but those sentences were successfully challenged in the Court of Appeal as being unduly lenient. Their guilty pleas were vacated and a retrial took place.
Richard Mountstephens and Kelly Thomas
The "degenerate" couple plied a teenager with drugs and alcohol before forcing her into prostitution and using indecent images of her for an online profile. They groomed their vulnerable victim who was forced to sleep with a number of men over three weeks for money which they pocketed.
Mountstephens, 34, and Thomas, 32, of Cardiff, began their abuse of the victim by taking her to the Celtic Manor on her birthday and told her she "could expect a good life" through prostitution. They had sexual activity with the child and took photos of her which they uploaded to a website advertising sexual services for money.
A sentencing hearing at Cardiff Crown Court was told the victim was forced to have sex and commit "degrading acts" with men who paid money to Mountstephens and Thomas. The defendants controlled the victim by giving her prescription drugs and alcohol. The couple also had sex with each other as the victim was abused while Thomas also engaged in sexual acts with men for money. Read more from their sentencing here.
David and Kim Crapper
The "monstrous" couple raped and sexually abused a young girl despite her crying and protestations. They convinced her their treatment of her was "normal" and repeatedly took advantage of her. The pair, of Barry, reached levels of "depravity" in their abuse of the child. The offences came to light when the victim told a friend about the husband and wife's behaviour and they were arrested by police. Sentencing the pair, Judge David Wynn Morgan said: "It's hard to think of a more monstrous [offence]." A sentencing hearing at Cardiff Crown Court heard the abuse began when she was very young and went on for years. Read more here.
Jason King and Victoria Porter
The couple abused, assaulted, and spat at people in the street after attending a funeral. At one stage during the brawl Jason King produced a claw hammer from his car while his partner Victoria Porter – a former criminology student – punched an 11-year-old girl in the face. King went on to block the toilet in this police station cell and then defecate on the floor while Porter refused to undergo a breath test before wetting herself in the testing room. A judge told the pair he was constantly surprised by the number of incidences of violence at the tail end of weddings and funerals when "drink and family emotions come together".
Nathan Price and Nathan Price
The father and son targeted a vulnerable pensioner and drove her to a bank to withdraw money for a garden job at her home which wasn't required. Nathan Price and his son, also called Nathan Price, preyed on 87-year-old Linda Broad as she lived alone at her flat in Swansea on February 6, 2020. Price senior appeared in her garden telling her that a tree in her garden needed to be felled. He falsely claimed Swansea Council was going to pay for the majority of the work but she would have to pay the balance of £1,600. Swansea Crown Court was told how Price senior asked Ms Broad if she had the money in her house before following her inside. At that stage Ms Broad felt uneasy about the matter but felt she was unable to escape what she was being subjected to.
Danny and Cavell Sinclair
The father and son knocked a man unconscious and threw bar stools and wheelie bins during a fight at an engagement party at Cardiff RFC. The fight was caught on CCTV as Abba's Dancing Queen played in the background. Danny, 41, and Cavell Sinclair, 21, attended the party at Cardiff Athletic Club on the grounds of Cardiff Arms Park and had been drinking alcohol. At around 9.30pm both defendants became involved in a fight with two men and punches were thrown.
A sentencing hearing at Cardiff Crown Court heard one of the men fell to the ground and was kicked in the face by Danny Sinclair who knocked him unconscious. The melee progressed outside the clubhouse where Cavell Sinclair threw bar stools which connected with one man's head and another man's face. He also threw a wheelie bin.
Trenae Greenland and Katie Barrington
The "greedy" couple with good jobs bringing in £60,000 a year were running a profitable side-line supplying cocaine. Trenae Greenland and Katie Barrington sold drugs on behalf of their own supplier earning £100 a day during the week and double that at the weekends. Cardiff Crown Court heard that as well as funding their own use of cocaine the pair spent their illicit earnings on expensive clothes and shoes and talked about booking VIP holidays.
Judge DJ Hale said the pair had been in a stable relation and with good jobs that together brought in a household income of £60,000 but had thrown it all away through "sheer greed". He said both defendants had used cocaine as part of their social lives and, given their joint income, could have secured a loan to pay off their indebtedness but instead choose "a different way out".
William and Stephen Bowditch
The father and son child rapists were brought to justice decades after they sexually abused and assaulted young girls. One of the victims of 73-year-old Arthur William Bowditch was aged just three when he raped her, leaving her so badly injured she required surgery. Bowditch's son Arthur Stephen Bowditch, now 54, grew up to also be a sex offender and a child rapist but there is no evidence they offended together. The men appeared in the dock at Swansea Crown Court for sentencing having both previously been convicted of multiple counts of rape and indecent assault of girls in the 1980s and 1990s.
The court heard of the girls William Bowditch raped was aged just three and she was left needing surgery to repair damaged tissue following the assault. He also sexually assaulted a girl with a rough wooden object. One of the girls Stephen Bowditch raped at a location near the west Wales coast had cried out for help during the assault but her stepfather had not heard her screams because of the sound of grass-cutting machinery.
The Casey family
Michael Casey was a member of family-based organised crime group and had been on the run for two years when he was finally caught. He was wanted for a string of house burglaries and was caught when police arrested him for stealing catalytic converters from cars. Casey burgled a dozen houses in Swansea, Neath, and Port Talbot in 2018 as part of a ruthless and organised gang which was responsible for scores of break-ins during which £500,000-worth of gold and other jewellery was taken.
While other members of the group were arrested in January 2019 he disappeared and after a manhunt involving police around the UK and in the Republic of Ireland he was arrested in Greater Manchester with a Mercedes car full of tools and stolen catalytic converters. Read here how he was the last member of ruthless burglary gang jailed after two years on the run.
Jay Hill and Aimee McCue
The drug-dealing couple, who were expecting a baby together at the time of sentencing, were found with around £2,000-worth of cannabis after police raided a house in Cardiff. Mobile phone evidence proved both of them were involved and aware of the enterprise. Hill, 27, and McCue, 26, were both concerned in supplying cannabis to customers with the operation based at McCue's home in Splott. Officers executed a warrant at the house where they discovered 368.1g of cannabis and £895 in cash. Read their sentencing here.
Liam Bolton and Liam Bolton
The father and son crack cocaine dealers offered a delivery service to users boasting that they "come to you like Deliveroo. Bolton senior and Bolton junior were caught red-handed selling the drug on the streets of Swansea then released under investigation and caught again just a few months later with large stashes of the drug hidden internally. Between them the Boltons have almost 300 previous offences on their records and sending them to prison a judge described them as "a menace to society".
Avril and Ryan Niner
The mother joined her son in dealing cocaine after "hard men" came knocking on their door demanding payments of debts he had run up through his addiction. Ryan had become addicted to the Class A drug while in prison and upon his release his use of cocaine spiralled along with his debts. He began dealing cocaine to pay off what he owed in an enterprise his mother joined him in and together the pair dealt the drug for 16 months before the police caught up with them.
READ NEXT:
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