Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Man jailed for making death threat to judge
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A man who issued a death threat against a Canterbury judge has been jailed for six weeks.
Geoffrey Marsh, 24, was arrested for contempt of court after watching his partner being sent down for her part in the sadistic torturing of a man.
Security guards were sent to the public gallery at Canterbury Crown Court after Marsh reacted angrily to seeing mumof-three Joanna Chapman’s sentence.
Court guard Sam Nelson then heard the agitated Marsh threaten to ‘get’ Judge Simon James before making comments to another prosecution witness, a pregnant woman.
As the mum-to-be was leaving the building, Marsh hurled obscenities.
He was then overheard by the security officer threatening to rape the children of the victims of his lover’s attack.
Philip Rowley, defending, said Marsh, from Ramsgate, admitted the contempt and apologised to the court.
He said he was very emo- tional during the case and his words were just empty and bluster.
But Judge Adele Williams told him: “These are very serious matters. The pregnant woman, who you approached in a threatening manner, was left very frightened.”
Marsh, who had been crying in the dock at the start of the hearing, then shook his head, prompting the judge to tell him: “It’s no good shaking your head at me, you have now accepted this behaviour. This is totally unacceptable conduct.
“These are not just words said in passing, these are words which were calculated to frighten and to disrupt the process of the court.
“This court cannot just ignore or let this conduct pass. Of course you felt very keenly the fact your partner was imprisoned but that does not excuse your behaviour in any way.”
Chapman, Marsh’s partner, was one of five people jailed last week for what Judge James had called the sickening, sadistic and gratuitous degradation and torture of a man.
Victim Benjamin Palmer was punched and kicked in the face and stomach, held prisoner in a flat for more than four hours and made to strip naked and drink urine.
Rebecca Foster, 25, of Eastern Esplanade, Margate; Julie Davies, 43, of Godwin Road, Margate; Jason Roberts, 28, of Dalby Square, Cliftonville and Bowe Davies, 22, of Bognor Regis, all admitted causing grievous harm with intent and false imprisonment.
Joanna Chapman, 24, of High Street, St Lawrence, Ramsgate, denied the charges but was convicted by a jury.
Jailing Chapman for six years, Judge James told her: “You were content at what the others were doing to your former lover and the father of your child.”