Pervert and dealer locked up in October for offences
OCTOBER was another busy month for the courts as dozens of Burton and Swadlincote criminals were sentenced.
The following cases were heard at courts in Staffordshire and Derbyshire last month, with some of the offenders jailed for their crimes.
CRAIG JENKINS
A convicted sex offender caught with an indecent image of a child he had downloaded on his laptop has been jailed after he breached his Sexual Harm Prevention Order.
Craig Jenkins, 52, from Burton, was sentenced to two years and two months imprisonment after appearing at Stafford Crown Court on Wednesday, October 19.
He pleaded guilty to three counts of making an indecent photograph of a child and two counts of breaching a Sexual Offences Prevention Order at the same court. He was also placed on the Sex Offenders’ Register for 10 years and made the subject of a further Sexual Harm Prevention Order.
He was caught on August 2, when he was visited by officers from Staffordshire Police’s Sexual Offender Management Unit, who checked his devices as part of the order he was subject to. The order had been imposed in 2014 and was to last 10 years.
A check of his mobile phone identified deleted Whatsapp messages, one of which was an indecent image of a child, said a Staffordshire Police spokesman.
STEVEN REILLY
A drug dealer who was “advertising” his criminal enterprise was found by police because he was riding a motorbike without a helmet.
Steven Peter Reilly, of Sycamore Road, Stapenhill, was riding his motorbike on a public footpath without a helmet on April 28 this year.
He was also uninsured and the motorbike had no plates. It was later found the 30-year-old had dealt drugs to two men in Sycamore Road and, as a result, his home was searched.
Police officers found £745 in cash, a mobile phone used to secure drug deals and a quantity of cocaine, worth between £250 and £700. An outbuilding was then searched using a key from inside the address, where between £12,000 and £26,000 worth of cannabis, snap seal bags, a grinder, working scales and the motorcycle which he was riding earlier was located.
Reilly was jailed for five years and three months at Stafford Crown Court on Friday, October 7, after admitting possession with intent to supply cocaine and cannabis, driving a vehicle otherwise than in accordance with a licence and without third party insurance. He also admitted acquiring/ using/possessing criminal property.
DARREN GALBRAITH
A Swadlincote man left a co-worker with fractures to his cheekbone after he scaled scaffolding and threw a 2ft pole at the victim’s face during a dispute.
Darren Galbraith and his victim were working with each other on a building site in Newhall, despite not getting on, Southern Derbyshire Magistrates’ Court heard.
On the day in question a row erupted and the victim slung his hard hat at the defendant, who responded by assaulting him with the pole.
The victim said the incident had “changed his life”. The attack left the self-employed man requiring eight weeks off work, missing out on pay.
At the time of writing, the 49-yearold defendant faced a nervous wait to see whether he would be sent to prison.
Alice Hornsby, prosecuting, said the incident took place at a housing site in Marble Drive on April 27.
AARON SWEENEY
A father-of-two was jailed after reining down a “flurry of punches” in a racist attack on a taxi driver.
Aaron Sweeney, 32, of Waterloo Street, Burton, used vile racist language as he hit the driver in the face and neck on multiple occasions while his victim was still driving, a court has heard.
Sweeney had become irate after the driver told him there would be a cleaning fee to pay when a woman he was travelling with was sick in the car after a night out in Burton.
The victim was left with blurry vision, headaches and injuries to his neck, face and forearm where he had been protecting himself against Sweeney.
At Stafford Crown Court, Sweeney pleaded guilty to racially aggravated assault occasioning actual bodily harm and was jailed for eight months.
BETH ELLIOT
A mum who had been drinking smashed into parked cars as she rushed to see her epileptic son after a fit. Forty-five-year-old Beth Elliot was having Sunday lunch at home when she received a call about her son.
She started driving her Saab despite being almost three times the legal limit, eventually crashing in Main Street, Albert Village.
Elliott, who lived nearby in Covert Place, Albert Village, was taken to Euston Street Police Station in Leicester, where her lowest breath test reading was 97 microgrammes per 100ml of breath. The legal limit is 35 microgrammes.
She was banned from driving for 25 months. She was ordered to pay a £200 fine, an £80 victim surcharge, and £85 towards court costs.