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DANIEL ROBERTS, CHRISTOPHER GRIFFITHS, AWEZ JAMSHAID AND SAIF SHAHZAD The four were sentenced for their roles in the death of 20-year-old Malaciah Thomas in a “ferocious” early hours knife attack on a street in Cardiff.
It happened just hours before his 21st birthday.
Roberts, 20, who does not have a permanent address, initially denied murder, but changed his plea partway through the trial. He was sentenced to custody for life with a minimum term of 25 years.
Griffiths, 30, from Newport Road in Roath, Cardiff, denied murder but was found guilty by a jury. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with the same minimum term.
Jamshaid, 19, from Moore Close in Ely, Cardiff, also denied murder and was found guilty. He was sentenced to custody for life with a minimum term of 11 years
Shahzad, 19, from Fidlas Road in Cyncoed, Cardiff, denied murder and was found guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter. He was sentenced to seven years and six months in a young offender institution. LASZLO VADASKI, MOHAMMAD BOHLOLZADEH, AND AKASH KRISHNAN The three London drug dealers were caught offering ‘happy hour’ drug deals in Pontypridd and have been jailed for more than 15 years.
They had travelled to Pontypridd with heroin and crack cocaine, and were arrested by police as they fled from a back lane in Glyncoch on August 2 last year.
Krishnan, of Greenford Road in Harrow, and Vadaszi, of no fixed abode, both admitted being concerned in the supply of heroin and cocaine and were both jailed for four years and eight months.
Bohlolzadeh, who does not have a fixed address, pleaded not guilty to all charges but was found guilty after a trial and was jailed for five years and six months.
Charges for each defendant relating to a serious assault on three people during the incident in Glyncoch were ordered to lie on file. KAY SMITH The ‘greedy’ woman stole thousands from her elderly friend to fund her gambling habit.
Smith drew out up to £2,000 at a time, even continuing to drain money out as Merle Morgan, 79, was in hospital before she died.
Smith had been given “third-party authority” over Mrs Morgan’s bank account to help manage her finances after the death of the pensioner’s husband.
But she took advantage of that trust to help herself to £11,767.84 by making repeated cash withdrawals between July 1, 2015, and July 31, 2016.
Smith, 54, of Heol Nant, Cilfynydd, Pontypridd, had denied 12 counts of fraud but was found guilty following a three-day trial. She was given a 15-month prison sentence, half which will be served in custody. of THOMAS HUGHES The 64-year-old was jailed for seven years after officers found thousands of pounds worth of cocaine in a safe at his property in Porthcawl.
His accountant, Joanne HughesBassett, 45, of Porthcawl, received a suspended sentence of 14 months for a money-laundering offence. DYLAN LEE DAVIES Davies’ elderly victim has ‘lost her faith in humanity’ after he stole her savings.
He broke into the home of a vulnerable couple in their 80s in the weeks before Christmas and stole thousands from them.
When the wife checked the kitchen cupboard of their home in Cwmavon where they had been keeping their cash ready for Christmas, she found their £4,000 savings was gone, as was her husband’s wallet and the £300 it contained.
Police recovered DNA from the scene which led them to Davies, of Glyn Street, Port Talbot. He pleaded guilty to burglary and was sentenced to three years in prison. DAFYDD CLACK The sexual abuser threatened to kill his victim when the offences came to light. The victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was left feeling suicidal and started to misuse alcohol and drugs as she tried to cope with what Dafydd Clack had done to her. The judge described it as a “horrific pattern of abuse”.
Clack, 31, of Abercerdin Road in Gilfach Goch, was found guilty of nine counts of sexual intercourse with a girl and two counts of indecent assault. The jury also convicted him of one count of raping a child and one count of making a threat to kill, which happened when the offences came to light. He was jailed for 10 years and must register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. MAHAD AND AMIN ELMI The brothers from London had laminated business cards made for customers as they ran a drug dealing operation in Cardiff.
Police discovered Mahad and Amin Elmi were controlling a 17-year-old boy to help with their county lines drug supply across the city.
When officers raided a flat in the Roath area of the capital, the teenager was found to have more than 50 street deals of heroin and crack cocaine, worth about £1,000, between his buttocks.
All three were charged with possession with intent to supply heroin, crack cocaine, and cannabis.
Mahad Elmi, 20, from Lambeth, London, pleaded guilty while Amin Elmi, 19, from London, was found guilty following a trial at Swansea Crown Court. They were jailed for four years and six years respectively.
The juvenile was dealt with separately at youth court where he pleaded guilty and received a 12-month referral order. He was also ordered to pay costs and a victim surcharge. JONATHAN BLAIR The drug dealer was found with three shotguns – including one sawn-off weapon – as well as a stash of money and more that £29,000-worth of crack cocaine and heroin.
The guns and drugs were recovered when armed officers swooped on a house in Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen following a tip-off and were part of a major county lines drug trafficking operation peddling Class A drugs from Liverpool to Wales.
Blair, 25, of Oakdene Road, Liverpool, admitted possession of a prohibited weapon – the sawn-off shotgun – as well as possession of two shotguns without a licence, two counts of possession of crack with intent to supply and one count of possession of heroin with intent to supply. He was handed an overall sentence of eight years and four months. GRANT WEBSTER He has been jailed after grandmother Barbara Rowe was killed when her car was hit by his lorry on a busy Cardiff road.
Mrs Rowe, of Pen-y-Fai, Bridgend, suffered catastrophic injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene on May 29 last year.
Her husband said the family’s lives had been “shattered forever”.
Webster, of Weaver Road, Leicester, was sentenced to 36 weeks imprisonment and was disqualified from driving for two years after he admitted causing death by careless driving.