A 22-year-old neo-Nazi was jailed for planning a mass gun attack, while two asylum seekers were locked up for raping a woman on Brighton beach while another filmed it.

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Among the other offenders put behind bars in July were the mother of Henry Nowak's killer Vickrum Digwa, a friend of the Manchester synagogue attacker and a police officer who carried out unnecessary strip searches on men in custody.

Lengthy sentences are handed to some of the worst offenders each month. These are some of the most shocking court cases that have been widely reported in the UK in recent weeks.

Claire Alderton fabricated her references to her charity employer and stopped turning up to work after lying that she had been diagnosed with cancer. The 48-year-old was jailed for two years at Portsmouth Crown Court after pleading guilty to committing fraud by false representation by dishonestly providing two false references to gain employment at the charity George’s Rockstars.

Alderton, from Portsmouth, was appointed to the position of trusts and foundations fundraiser in June 2024 after she fabricated the references, including using fake emails. Also during her employment, she lied to the charity by falsely stating she had submitted applications for grants as part of her role.

A Hampshire Constabulary spokesman said: "In December 2024, Alderton told her employer that she had been diagnosed with cancer and stopped attending work, she then stopped responding to any contact from the charity. The charity contacted the foundation that Alderton said she had secured a grant from, only to find out that no application had ever been made."

The force contacted Alderton’s referees through LinkedIn but were informed that they had not written the references she had provided, and that the emails which were allegedly from them were fake

Amy O’Shaughnessy, who co-founded the charity after losing her son George to Leukaemia in 2019, said: “To target charities, secure employment through deception, and fabricate a cancer diagnosis to the mother and founder of an organisation established in memory of a child who bravely fought that very disease is truly abhorrent."

Pc Emma Thomas, from Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary’s Central Fraud Unit, said: "I am pleased with this result and to see Alderton put behind bars for her actions. To knowingly and purposefully target the charity sector for personal gain is an appalling crime and one for which Alderton deserved to face justice for."

A teenage Islamic extremist planned a terrorist attack with a gun and tried to travel to a training camp in Somalia. Muhammad Billal, 19, from Nelson, Lancashire, was arrested in November 2024 at Manchester Airport trying to board a flight to Dubai.

He was charged the following February with two counts of preparation of terrorist acts and four counts of collecting information likely to be used by a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism. At the Old Bailey, almost a year after pleading guilty, Billal was handed an extended sentence of 13-and-a-half years in custody, with an extended licence period of five years.

The judge, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb told him: "By your own account to the probation officer, you intended to kill members of the public and you hoped to be killed by police. You could not be sure that you would not have gone through with the attack."

Billal repeatedly accessed material from so-called Islamic State (IS) and declared his support for the organisation throughout 2024 until his arrest in November, the court heard. Those included conversations where he defended IS online with comments like “for you they are terrorists, for me they are fighters of justice and truth” along with downloading IS fitness manuals, and searching for things like “how do you join Isis?”.

READ MORE: Teenage terrorist arrested at Manchester Airport

The court heard his terror attack planning involved researching “nearby shooting ranges” and buying a gun on the dark web using cryptocurrency. He also conducted online reconnaissance of potential attack locations, including churches, synagogues, busy train stations and Manchester United’s stadium.

He went on to take steps to travel to Somalia between last October and November 2024 after being contacted online. He sought advice and guidance from those contacts on how to leave the UK without arousing suspicion, changed his appearance, deleted extreme Islamic material from his mobile phone, bought clothes, equipment and online tickets. He also obtained a visa to enter Ethiopia in order to facilitate crossing into Somalia via Dubai.

Defending Billal, Andrew Morris said the defendant was “vulnerable” and had been “brainwashed” as a teenager after coming to the UK from Italy with his parents when he was 13. Judge Cheema-Grubb accepted that Billal had been looking for “belonging and brotherhood” through the ideology, but not that he had been exploited.

A 25-year-old man was jailed for the “callous and cold-blooded” killing of a 15-year-old boy in a children’s play area during a family music festival at a London park. Aderahman Boumzough, of no fixed address, was sentenced to 35 years and 169 days after he was found guilty of murdering Rene Graham and the attempted murder of another man.

Police were called to Emslie Horniman’s Pleasance Park in Ladbroke Grove, west London, at around 7.20pm on July 21 2024. CCTV footage showed Boumzough calmly approaching the children’s play area during a family music festival before firing a single shot. Further footage showed him chasing and attempting to shoot a man but the gun jammed and he fled.

More than a year passed before Boumzough was arrested and charged. Sentencing him at Woolwich Crown Court, Judge Simon James said Rene was just 15 and “should have had his whole life to realise his dreams and aspirations”, adding that it is “impossible not to be moved” hearing his family attempt to describe their profound grief.

The judge said Rene’s mother, father and aunt all eloquently captured “the agony of every parent’s worst nightmare”, adding: “I can do no more than echo Rene’s mother’s words that no mother should ever have to stand in a court and speak about the violent death of her son.”

He added: “Her and the rest of Rene’s family’s heartbreak, shock, anger, and the emotional pain of being robbed of the opportunity of seeing Rene grow into a man, were caused by your callous and cold-blooded conduct in gunning down and killing an unarmed and defenceless teenager in what amounted to a premeditated public execution.”

He said Boumzough has failed to provide any explanation or motive for “such extreme and gratuitous public violence”, and failed to demonstrate “even a flicker of remorse”. The judge said a video clip found on his phone revealed he was in fact “proud and boastful” about his crimes.

A woman who killed her husband tried to get away with murder by lying about the fatal stab wound to his chest. Daryl Berman, 72, told police that David Berman, 84, had stumbled while he took her lunch tray into the kitchen of their home in Prestwich and had fallen on a knife.

She claimed he said “It’s OK I slipped” before she heard a groan and ran into the kitchen to discover him face down and covered in blood. Her account was initially accepted but her actions “unravelled” when suspicions were raised about the injury and a post-mortem examination later concluded it was non-accidental. Retired joiner Mr Berman also had a stab wound to his right middle finger which prosecutors said was a common self-defence injury.

Paramedics attended the couple’s address in Butterstile Lane on March 13 last year after she dialled 999 but were unable to save him. Officers spoke to the defendant on the driveway of her home and she said: “You don’t think I murdered him do you?” She was said to be “very calm and matter of fact”, the Crown said, and also had little blood on her despite stating she had rolled over her husband of 27 years.

READ MORE: 27 years of devoted marriage ends in murder

READ MORE: Moment wife's lies started minutes after murdering her husband

A jury convicted her of murder and she was handed a life term with a minimum of 12 years. Judge Tina Landale told her: "It appears something happened between you where David went to the floor and you stabbed him in the chest with severe force. You have never given a truthful account of what happened. I am satisfied something must have happened to cause you to lose your patience or temper and begin to attack David with the knife you had earlier used to prepare your lunch. Whatever the trigger was is unknown."

A former police officer who once plotted to become a serial killer was sent back to prison for sharing fantasies online about raping and murdering women and girls. Brian Darby, 80, was jailed for life in 2002 after putting his murderous plans into action, stalking potential victims and breaking into one woman’s home and putting a wire around her neck before she managed to escape.

Darby, who admitted at the time he wanted to be “as evil as possible”, was convicted of attempted murder, conspiracy to murder, and aggravated burglary. He was eventually set free from prison on licence in 2017.

But Wood Green Crown Court heard he started looking at indecent pictures of children online almost as soon as he was freed. When he was arrested in February this year, after creating and distributing indecent images of children that he had created using AI, police also found a series of online chats where he had shared horrifying rape and murder fantasies.

Prosecutor Bartholomew O’Toole told the hearing Darby had posted a sexual fantasy involving killing children on Reddit, and online chats featured his ambitions to strangle, smother and drown women. He said one post spelled out the “strangulation of his wife with family gathering around to voice encouragement and advice”. In another post, Darby said schools should “train girls to be sex slaves and dominatrices”, while women should be killed at the age of 30.

Darby, from Enfield, north London, pleaded guilty to nine obscene communications charges, three counts of making indecent photographs of a child, and two counts of distributing indecent photographs of a child.

Judge John Law sentenced Darby to four years in prison, with an extra two years on licence once released. But he told Darby, who has been recalled to prison to continue serving his life licence behind bars, that he may now die in jail without ever being released again. He said Darby was “emotionally detached and indifferent” when quizzed about his latest set of offending, and “did not appear to be embarrassed or ashamed”.

Darby was sacked as a PC at Leicestershire Police in the 1970s when he was convicted of indecently assaulting boys. He went on to work as a health and safety officer for the BBC in the 1980s, the court heard.

A teenager murdered a mother-of-three by running her over with a car. Kian Bateman, 19, was found guilty of murdering Shelley Davies, 38, following a trial, as well as causing her partner, David Bratcher, grievous bodily harm.

Cardiff Crown Court heard Bateman had been taking nitrous oxide before he drove his mother’s Seat Ibiza at the couple outside the 4th Glamorgan Home Guard Club in the city. Mrs Justice Stacey sentenced Bateman to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 17 years.

On the night of the murder in September last year, Bateman had been visiting the social club to attend a General Levy gig with friends, the court heard. After the bar closed, Bateman left the venue in the car to visit his girlfriend. She had not yet returned home from work, so he drove back to the venue, where a group of people had gathered outside and the atmosphere was growing “ugly”.

The court heard Bateman saw his brother in a dispute with a group of people, during which Shelley Davies ended up on the ground. Bateman then deliberately drove his car at the group, running over Ms Davies, who was lying on the ground, and hitting her partner, David Bratcher, then aged 40, seriously injuring him.

Mrs Justice Stacey said: “You drove straight over (Ms Davies) at about 10mph as you accelerated towards Mr Bratcher, who you then hit with the car. You did not stop, but drove off… you handed yourself in the next day.”

Ms Davies later died in hospital on October 18 as a result of her injuries. Bateman, of Cardiff, admitted causing death and injury by dangerous driving, and was convicted by a jury of murder and causing GBH with intent.

Mrs Justice Stacey said: "I am satisfied and I am sure that you did not see Ms Davies lying in the road in front of Mr Bratcher and I accept that you did not intend to cause her any harm. But because she was in the way when you were trying to cause really serious harm to Mr Bratcher, it means that you are guilty of Ms Davies’ murder."

The court heard Bateman has a learning disability, had shown remorse for the murder and has no previous convictions. As well as his prison sentence, Bateman was also disqualified from driving for 21 years and 109 days and ordered to take an extended re-test.

A sex offender would pretend to be a caretaker or a police officer to exploit children. David Pearce, 70, was jailed for 18 years in July after DNA evidence identified him almost 30 years later.

Prosecutors say that on April 23, 1990, at Barking park lido – while masquerading as a police officer or a caretaker, Pearce told four children, two boys and two girls – aged between eight and 11, that keys were missing before assaulting them. The children ran to a nearby police station to report what had happened, enabling officers to gather statements, put a cordon in place and prevent the scene becoming contaminated.

Semen was discovered on a bench in a changing cubicle and forensic officers extracted a DNA profile but it did not match to anyone on the database. The case was filed pending further investigative opportunities coming to light after initial lines of inquiry were exhausted.

In 2019, police said Pearce was arrested for a separate offence of voyeurism and the DNA he provided was a one-in-a-billion match to the suspect at the lido.

Detectives then reviewed similar reports and found victim statements from a 1996 incident which followed an identical pattern of offending. In this case, the 13-year-old victim said a man had forced her into shrubbery in a Barking park and assaulted her as he claimed to search for a pair of lost keys.

Pearce was questioned in relation to the 1996 incident not long after his initial arrest in 2019, and police said the victim-survivor attended an identification parade where she confirmed Pearce as the man who had assaulted her. The forensics, successful identification, plus the circumstantial evidence which showed Pearce living in the area in 1990 and owning a food truck situated close to the park in 1996, provided detectives with enough to charge him.

Pearce, from Cambridgeshire, was sentenced at Snaresbrook Crown Court after pleading guilty to seven sex offences, the Metropolitan Police said.

A con woman pocketed tens of thousands of pounds by illegally subletting other people’s properties and stealing valuables from homes while house-sitting. Ariana Rose, 40, waged a “campaign of dishonest behaviour” over nearly a decade, using the money she made through fraud and theft to fund a “lavish lifestyle”, complete with designer clothing and expensive meals.

At a sentencing hearing at Southwark Crown Court, Rose, previously known as Sana Ali, was sentenced to five years in prison for multiple offences including theft, fraud, using a false tenancy agreement and perverting the course of justice. Judge Nicholas Rimmer also ordered her to pay more than £65,000 in compensation to her victims.

Between 2016 and 2018, Rose illegally sublet a two-bedroom flat in Salford Quays, Manchester, to three different people who believed landlord David Lederer had authorised her to do so, according to a prosecution summary of the crimes. Using a bogus email address, she told tenants it belonged to the property owner Mr Lederer, and used it to pressure tenants and discourage them from continuing to ask for their money back.

One of those tenants, Aoibheann Alliot, paid the defendant a total of £4,340 between October 2016 and March 2017. Court documents showed Ms Alliot described Rose as “controlling and irrational”, refusing to let her have guests over and restricting the times at which she could use the kitchen or shower.

Rose received a total of £30,337 from apparent rental payments over the time she was living at Mr Lederer’s flat, the court was told. Mr Lederer issued a notice of possession against Rose in August 2017, and she stopped paying rent. She eventually moved out in June 2018, leaving the flat in “an untidy and dirty state”, with rubbish and clothing strewn around the property, numerous carrier bags from expensive boutiques, and a large amount of correspondence indicating that Rose was in debt.

Property administrator Caroline Tyrrell-Evans later launched a private prosecution against Rose after she occupied a flat in Ladbroke Grove, west London, for 15 months between 2023 and 2025 – accruing £43,400 in rental arrears. Rose vacated the flat in December 2025 and left it in a “filthy” state, the court was told. Bank statement from her account showed that, between January 2024 and June 2024, Rose received income totalling £7,400, in separate payments with the reference “rent” – suggesting she had also sublet the Ladbroke Grove property.

Rose also targeted properties through the house-sitting platform Trusted House Sitters, stealing valuables from homes in Warwickshire, Hampshire, Somerset, and Suffolk between July and October 2025.

Judge Rimmer told her: "Yours was a campaign of dishonest behaviour spanning nearly a decade, with offences in 2016, 2018, 2023, 2024, and 2025. The impact of your offences was considerable and it was extensive. I am left in no doubt that you caused your victims very real, serious upset and distress."

An 'evil' arsonist murdered a pensioner by setting a wheelie bin on fire, engulfing the victim’s home and leaving two other family members in a coma. Andrew Gorrell was wearing a Nightmare On Elm Street T-shirt – a horror film in which the central character was burned alive – when he randomly targeted the home of 82-year-old John Edwards, who died in hospital two weeks later.

Gorrell blinked repeatedly as he was sentenced at Wolverhampton Crown Court to life imprisonment and told he must serve a minimum term of 25 years before even being eligible to apply for parole. The 55-year-old, from Saltney in Flintshire, North Wales, was found guilty in February of murder, two counts of causing grievous bodily harm with intent, attempting to cause grievous bodily harm with intent and arson with intent to endanger life.

Mr Edwards died of his injuries after the wheelie bin fire – which had been placed to block the front door – spread to his home in Holyhead Road, Wednesbury, West Midlands, in the early hours of May 11 last year. Judge Michael Chambers KC said victim personal statements from family members, including one of Mr Edwards’ grandchildren, showed that the impact of what Gorrell had done was “absolutely horrendous”.

READ MORE: Arsonist wearing 'Freddy Krueger top' who killed West Midlands pensioner in 'evil' random attack jailed for life

The judge told him: “No sentence I can impose can put the clock back, nor should it be viewed as an attempt to put a value on a human life. You travelled by train from Chester to Wolverhampton and then in the early hours of the morning you took a tram to Wednesbury. Why you were going there has never been fully explained – you having elected not to give evidence. But once there you quite deliberately set a number of fires.”

The court also heard that Gorrell was given a 12-month custodial sentence in 1990 at Knutsford Crown Court in Cheshire for setting fire to a club while working as a glass collector in his late teens.

Passing sentence, Judge Chambers said Gorrell’s actions on the day and his previous conviction for arson showed he was “a highly dangerous individual” with an interest in fire. The judge told Gorrell: “For anyone to wake up in the night to find their home on fire is a living nightmare.” He added: “It was clearly an evil random attack the reason for which is not clear.”

A speeding drink-driver caused the death of a teenager who sent heartbreaking messages predicting her death while a passenger in his car. Erin Slane, 19, was being driven by Kyle Patrick when the vehicle crashed into a field in Perthshire on September 1, 2024. A court heard that Patrick drove at “grossly excessive speeds” and Erin had messaged friends during the journey saying: “I may not survive tonight. I’m scared. Kyle is steaming.”

Patrick, 23, pleaded guilty to a charge of causing her death by dangerous driving, and causing serious injury to another passenger. He admitted repeatedly driving at excessive speeds on the journey and losing control of the vehicle, which crossed on to the opposite carriageway, went down an embankment, hit a fence and rolled over several times in a field.

The court heard Patrick had been drinking in several pubs in Perth on the evening of August 31, 2024 and at around 11.30pm began offering people lifts from a taxi rank. In the early hours of the following morning he agreed to drive two young women, with Ms Slane in the front and her friend in the back. They were both wearing seat belts.

READ MORE: Teen, 19, sends tragic final 'I may not survive tonight' text before horror crash

The court heard that on the journey he reached a speed of 119mph in a 60mph area before losing control of the vehicle, and that his blood alcohol level was “exceptionally high”. Following the crash he called police to report what had happened.

Lord Harrower sentenced Patrick to eight years behind bars when he appeared for sentencing at the High Court in Glasgow. He said the incident was “no mere lapse of judgment” on Patrick’s part and that he had demonstrated a “prolonged and deliberate course of driving at grossly excessive speeds while impaired through alcohol”. The judge said Erin, who died at the scene, was "about to start university and had her whole life ahead of her".

A young neo-Nazi who planned a mass gun attack was jailed after being snared by MI5 in an undercover sting. Alfie Coleman, 22, was found guilty of preparing for terrorist acts after an Old Bailey retrial.

Previously, the court had heard how Coleman was aged 14 when he first began to trawl the internet for extreme right-wing material including a neo-Nazi text which he downloaded on his iPad. He has now been jailed for 13 and a half years, with a further five years on extended licence.

Judge Richard Marks KC said Coleman must be treated as a “dangerous offender” as he sentenced him, describing the views the defendant had expressed as “virulently racist”. He told Coleman: “(Giving evidence) You maintained that much of what you had said and the virulently racist views which you expressed were no more than intrusive thoughts and did not represent what you believed in real life. It was in effect, although you did not use these words, hyperbole, bravado, fantasy, and you never had any intention to carry out an attack.”

The 22-year-old penned a “manifesto” in a diary and identified potential targets, including the Lord Mayor of London and a mosque, the court heard. The former part-time Tesco worker went on to compile a hate list of colleagues and customers he branded with racial slurs or as “race traitors”.

Authorities first became concerned in the summer of 2023 when Coleman, from Great Notley in Essex, became increasingly active on online extreme right-wing groups. He was caught after undercover officers from MI5 engaged with Coleman in an encrypted chat as he sought to buy weapons.

READ MORE: Jail for Neo-Nazi, 22, who planned mass gun attack and idolised Jo Cox killer

He arranged to buy a Makarov pistol, five magazines and 200 rounds of ammunition, in a Morrisons car park in Stratford, east London, on the morning of September 29 2023. Jurors saw dramatic video of Coleman dropping £3,500 in a Land Rover Discovery and picking up a holdall containing the handgun and ammunition from the boot. Before he had gone 30 yards, Coleman, who was carrying his Tesco employee card, was confronted by armed counter-terrorism police and forced to the ground.

A search of the home he shared with his parents and sibling revealed the extent of Coleman’s murderous ideology, including idolising Thomas Mair, the extremist who killed MP Jo Cox. Police found £2,500 in savings and a device to detect bugs and secret cameras in his bedside drawer; a rock with a Swastika on a table; a Black Sun flag associated with neo-Nazism on the wall; and various extreme right-wing books.

The court heard Coleman will serve two-thirds of his jail sentence, less the more than 1,000 days he has already spent in custody, before being eligible for parole.

A UPS worker dubbed 'King' paved the way for £10 million of cocaine to be smuggled into Britain, while one of the drug ring's leading players directed operations from Spain.

Zak Archbold, 30, was the inside man at the UPS depot in Stanford-le-Hope in Essex as parcels containing class A drugs were shipped into the country from the Netherlands. Southwark Crown Court heard Archbold used his role as a supervisor to ensure that the drug shipments came through undetected and went on to the right truck for collection by another member of the gang.

Co-defendant Steven Bullen, 51, admitted playing his part in conspiracies to supply a total of 790 kilos of cocaine as well as separate plots to supply 242 kilos of MDMA and 114 kilos of amphetamine, directing operations from his villa in Spain. He was sentenced to 16 years and four months in prison.

Archbold was convicted at trial of fraudulently evading the prohibition on the importation of class A drugs, with evidence showing the smuggling operation involved 290 kilos of cocaine. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Judge Nathaniel Rudolf KC said Archbold got involved in the drugs ring when he fell into debt, but then “enthusiastically played your part”. He said Bullen had a leading role in the hierarchy of the drugs gang, where one of the designated drivers was known as the “B52 bomber”, secret compartments were used in cars for the transportation of illicit parcels, and hundreds of kilos of drugs worth tens of millions were sold.

The judge added: "Taking part in the way you both did in high-level criminality involving this amount of drugs is a pathway of risk and reward. The reward is financial, and the risk is prosecution and conviction. You both chose to walk that pathway and must face the consequences."

READ MORE: UPS worker dubbed 'King' behind £10m cocaine smuggling operation jailed

The illegal drugs supply operations were cracked when law enforcement agencies gained access in 2020 to the secure EncroChat messaging system, which was used by criminal gangs around the world to direct their operations. The court heard a drugs gang paid about £2,000 for each kilo of cocaine shipped into the UK through Archbold’s UPS depot in Essex, with cocaine valued at £10 million brought through in the space of just five weeks in April and May 2020.

Gemma Vincent, from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), said Bullen was responsible for a “staggering volume of drugs” being smuggled into the UK. The CPS worked with the National Crime Agency (NCA) and international law enforcement to secure his extradition to face justice.

Both defendants were convicted of conspiracy to import cocaine, while Bullen also admitted conspiracy to supply cocaine, conspiracy to supply MDMA, and conspiracy to produce amphetamine.

Two brothers killed a civil servant 42 years ago 'for fun' during a spree of violent robberies targeting gay men. Michael Stewart, 57, and Anthony Stewart, 60, were just 15 and 18 when they set upon Anthony Littler, who was bludgeoned to death as he walked home in East Finchley, north London, on May 1, 1984.

The Stewarts were finally brought to justice after their younger brother reported them 29 years later, saying his siblings had confessed to the killing and boasted about 'queer bashing'. Following an Old Bailey trial, the pair were found guilty of murder and Mrs Justice Cutts jailed them for life.

Anthony Stewart, who was likely to have delivered the fatal blow, was handed a minimum term of 15 years in prison and “lookout” Michael Stewart was jailed for at least 10 years.

In a televised sentencing, the senior judge said: “Anthony Littler was in 1984 aged 45. He was, according to those who knew him, a quiet, kind and gentle man. He lived a quiet, decent and honest life. He worked as a civil servant and lived alone in East Finchley.” She told the defendants: "This was not an impulsive attack, I am quite sure your group was lying in wait for a victim, someone to attack and rob."

Within minutes of the attack, Michael Stewart had anonymously called for an ambulance from a phone box, but a search for an injured man was called off after he hung up. Half an hour later, Mr Littler was found by members of the public lying in a pool of blood, having suffered a “catastrophic” brain injury.

By the spring of 1984, the Stewart siblings and their friends had made a “hobby” of targeting lone men whom they believed to be gay, jurors were told. During house-to-house police inquiries, they claimed to be at home at the time of the attack on Mr Littler, with binman Anthony Stewart insisting he never used the alley. Despite an appeal on BBC Crimewatch and ITV’s Police 5, no meaningful leads were identified and the case remained unsolved for decades.

The breakthrough came on the 29th anniversary of Mr Littler’s death, when the defendants’ younger brother, Daniel, who was 10 at the time, came forward to police after a family falling out. In 2022, police reopened the investigation and deployed covert investigative techniques against the brothers, bugging their cars and Michael’s home. Anthony was said to be a man of few words, but Michael proved to have a “loose tongue” and bragged about what he did in 1984, the court heard.

An RAF serviceman repeatedly strangled two women during a campaign of abuse lasting almost two decades. Kenny Ralph Dalgleish, 38, was given a 14-year extended sentence with 11 years in custody at the High Court in Glasgow.

Dalgleish was found guilty of 11 charges, including assault and rape, domestic abuse, two counts of assault to injury and danger to life, indecent assault, breach of peace, and a variety of other sexual offences.

A trial at the High Court in Dundee heard that the 38-year-old became controlling and verbally abusive towards both women soon after meeting them. His behaviour escalated to include verbal, physical and serious sexual abuse. The violence included non-fatal strangulation, with Dalgleish grabbing both women by the neck and restricting their breathing.

The court heard that Dalgleish used coercive control against one of the women, which included controlling finances and what food she was allowed to eat, preventing her from sleeping by hitting and shaking her, and restricting how long she was allowed to leave the house. He isolated her from friends and family, refused to allow her to have male companions and made derogatory and abusive remarks towards her.

Dalgleish was also convicted of using weapons during the abuse, including holding a knife against her neck and back and striking her with a wooden spoon.

Faye Cook, procurator fiscal for High Court Sexual Offences, said: "Kenny Dalgleish, who was a serving member of the armed forces, carried out a sustained campaign of abuse against two women, using control, intimidation and violence over many years. His offending included non-fatal strangulation, a particularly dangerous form of abuse which is recognised as a key indicator of escalating violence and risk. What these women experienced was deeply traumatic, and the evidence presented in court showed a clear pattern of domestic abuse and serious sexual offending which has had a lasting impact."

A man who raped and murdered his estranged wife and staged a scene to make her death look like a suicide was jailed for life with a minimum term of 33 years. Michael Thompson, 56, refused to enter the courtroom for his sentencing hearing.

Nottingham Crown Court heard how he subjected Kimberley Thompson to years of domestic abuse, including controlling, coercive behaviour, and physical violence and made hundreds of hours of recordings of her before he suffocated her at their Northampton home in the early hours of August 9 last year.

A seven-week trial heard that Thompson claimed they had consensual sex before he later found 43-year-old Ms Thompson lifeless and surrounded by tablets and alcohol bottles. Ms Thompson’s post-mortem examination found no evidence of any alcohol and only low levels of caffeine, paracetamol and codeine in her body, the court was told.

Thompson and his wife, who had been married for 19 years and had two children, were separated and divorce proceedings had been initiated at the time of the killing. During the trial, the prosecution said that Thompson, who still lived with his wife at their home address, monitored what she “did, ate, where she went and who she was with”.

Paramedics found Ms Thompson with an injury to her mouth and surrounded by empty pill packets, bottles of vodka and gin and photographs of her and Thompson and another of her sister, who had taken her own life a decade before. Ms Moore told the jury posts that Ms Thompson shared on Facebook and Snapchat in the early hours of that morning that she had “drank too much” raised suspicion among her friends and family because it had a spelling error and was not written the way she would write it.

READ MORE: Man jailed for life for rape and murder of wife after staged suicide

Thompson, of Pinewood Road, Northampton, was found guilty of rape, murder and two counts of perverting the course of justice. Judge Nirmal Shant KC sentenced Thompson to 33 years for murder and perverting the course of justice, and 10 years to run concurrently for rape.

Sentencing him in his absence, she said: “You have shown no remorse. Throughout the course of the trial you sat in the dock shaking your head and making audible noises of dissent. And, in the ultimate act of cowardice and contempt, you have refused to come into court to hear from the family of the grief you have caused.”

Two asylum seekers repeatedly raped a woman on Brighton beach while a third filmed it. All three have been jailed for the “entirely predatory and callous attack”.

Egyptian national Ibrahim Alshafe, 26, and Iranian national Abdulla Ahmadi, 26, were jailed for 21 years each for raping the woman on October 4 last year, while Egyptian national Karin Al-Danasurt, 21, was sentenced to 18 years and six months. The three men were also handed a further six years on extended licence at their sentencing at Hove Crown Court.

It follows a five-week trial in April, where jurors heard the woman was targeted by the men as she was “staggering in the street” and was “incapacitated” in the early hours of October 4. Alshafe and Ahmadi took her behind a beach hut in the seaside city and raped her, while Al-Danasurt filmed the ordeal. The trial heard the woman recalled being spat on, kicked and her throat being grabbed during the attack.

At the sentencing hearing, the woman read a victim impact statement to the court, saying: "They destroyed my life that night, they took something from me nobody had the right to do so. They violated me in every way." She told the court when she closes her eyes she sees the man filming it and them all “laughing at me”.

Sentencing the men, Judge Christine Henson KC said: "Each of you participated in an entirely predatory and callous attack on a female separated from her friends after what had been a fun night out for her. You each treated her with contempt and you each played a role in degrading her in the most appalling way."

Prosecutor Hanna Llewellyn-Waters KC described the men as "devoid of humanity" and their treatment of the woman was "entirely predatory, callous and contemptuous". She described the impact on the woman as “extreme”.

READ MORE: Asylum seekers who raped woman on Brighton beach and third who filmed attack jailed

Judge Henson said in her judgment the moving of the woman from the relative safety of the street to darkness on the beach was a form of "abduction". She told the men: "Your victim was particularly vulnerable due to her unconscious state through most of the ordeal."

Alshafe and Ahmadi were found guilty of two counts of rape by jurors, while Al-Danasurt was found guilty of four counts of rape as a secondary party by encouraging and filming the attack. The three defendants knew each other were living at Home Office-approved hotel accommodation for asylum seekers in Lower Beeding, near Horsham, West Sussex.

The mother of murderer Vickrum Digwa was jailed for three years for removing the knife used by her son to kill Henry Nowak from the crime scene. Kiran Kaur was sentenced at Southampton Crown Court for assisting an offender on the night of the murder on December 3 2025 by taking the weapon back to the nearby family home.

The 53-year-old, of St Denys Road, Southampton, was found guilty by jurors who also convicted Digwa of murder and carrying a knife in public, following a trial in May. Digwa, 23, was jailed for life with a minimum term of 21 years on June 1 for the murder of the 18-year-old finance student, after falsely claiming Mr Nowak had racially abused him.

Sentencing Kaur, Judge William Mousley KC said: “A responsible parent would have challenged their son over their actions and encourage them to do the right thing. Instead you took the knife home and put it with a larger collection of ceremonial and other weapons in your son’s bedroom. That would have helped to conceal what it had been used for. This is because you wanted him to avoid being caught.”

The judge said her actions at Belmont Road before and after taking the dagger away “added to your son’s pretence that he had done nothing wrong and that he was the victim”. He said her role added to the “degradation of Henry being arrested when he was dying”.

The court heard the knife was recovered after examination of CCTV, and determined by the police to be the murder weapon about a week after Mr Nowak was killed.

Prosecutor Nicholas Lobbenberg KC had told the court her role was “crucial” in removing the murder weapon at a time the police were coming to the scene. He said: “The absence of weapon at the scene caused by her actions hampered the police attending who were, as your Honour will recall, were confronted with a wall of lies. She chose not to disclose what she had done. Absence of that weapon led to Henry dying terrified, alone and disbelieved, her actions contributed to this.”

Barrister Mark Watson, defending Kaur, said at the time of the incident Kaur only became involved after receiving a phone call that her son had been attacked, as she was getting ready for bed. He said the mother was “equally misled” as Digwa lied to those around him about what happened. He said what she did was a “spontaneous” act, not a calculated plan, adding: “The weapon was not destroyed, it was not cleaned, it was not broken up and hidden.”

The judge acknowledged that Kaur is unlikely to reoffend and her actions were “mistakenly, to protect your son rather than for any personal gain”.

A gangster rapper who murdered a social media star who had disrupted a music video shoot featuring snakes and a Komodo dragon will spend a minimum of 28 years behind bars. Drill rapper Ellis Heather was found guilty of killing Stephen Morrisson, known as Zero Ls – who had regularly posted content on Snapchat and YouTube before he was fatally stabbed in Epping, Essex, six years ago.

On June 23 2020, Mr Morrisson stumbled into a music video shoot organised by Heather and fellow drill rapper Yonas Girma. He irritated the filming crew, hit his head on a tree and appeared to drive at them, forcing them to jump out of the way, before being fatally stabbed in the chest.

Afterwards, Heather partied with friends and laughed as they listened to music by the victim’s brother, who has enjoyed success in the UK singles and R&B charts. The victim, 30, had been known for his appearances on his rapper brother Morrisson’s music videos making the sign of a zero and L, standing for zero losses.

Heather, 26, known as Rackz, from Slough, Berkshire, and Mr Girma, 29, known as Yosh, from Feltham, north London, had denied being involved in the fatal stabbing. A jury at the Old Bailey previously found Heather guilty of murder and cleared Mr Girma of wrongdoing.

At the same court, Judge Nigel Lickley KC jailed Heather for life with a minimum term of 28 years, court officials said.

In a statement read by Stephen Morrisson’s mother Lorraine on behalf of her family, she said: "Steve was a son, a brother, a dad and an uncle. Every day we try to keep his memory alive so that his young son, nieces and nephews never forget him, because memories are all we now have left."

Actor Iain Robertson was sentenced to nine years in jail for raping one woman and assaulting two others. The former River City star was convicted of a total of five offences against three women between 2004 and 2019.

The 45-year-old raped one of the women some time between 2018 and 2019, and also sexually assaulted her on another occasion. He subjected the other women to abuses including shouting, swearing, threats of violence, persistent messaging and monitoring of their movements.

He falsely told the friends of one victim that she was mentally unstable, let himself into her home without her knowledge or consent, and threatening to self-harm. On one occasion he poured a bottle of wine over one of his victims.

Sentencing Robertson at the High Court in Edinburgh, judge Lady Drummond told him his offending had involved “violence, coercion, intimidation, and sexual abuse”. She told him: “None of this was isolated behaviour. It formed part of a pattern of conduct carried out by you to exert power and control over these women and to make them fearful and distressed.”

READ MORE: 'Violence, coercion and intimidation' - River City actor Iain Robertson jailed for rape and assault

She told him rape and sexual assault are “violations of a person’s bodily integrity”, and that the effects can be “long-lasting and life-changing”.

She acknowledged Robertson’s history of “alcohol misuse” and adverse childhood experiences, but said given the seriousness of his offending only a custodial sentence would be appropriate. She sentenced him to nine years in prison plus a three-year extension period, during which he will be closely monitored. He was also placed on the sex offenders register and given a non-harassment order.

Mohammad Bashir planned a terror attack with a friend who went on a fatal knife rampage at a Manchester synagogue less than two months later. The 31-year-old drove Jihad Al-Shamie, 35, on a 10-hour round trip to conduct hostile reconnaissance at the UK’s Defence Academy in Shrivenham, Swindon, on August 14 last year, Manchester Crown Court heard.

On October 2, two men were killed in a separate incident as worshippers gathered at Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue to mark Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year for Jews. Syrian-born UK citizen Al-Shamie, who wore a fake suicide belt, was shot dead by police outside the building.

Last month Bashir, of Cheetham Hill, Manchester, pleaded guilty to the preparation of terrorist acts. He has now been jailed for life with a minimum term of 17 years.

Prosecutors said there was no evidence to suggest the defendant had any involvement in the Heaton Park incident but the planned attack on the defence facility was similar in nature and would have caused multiple fatalities.

READ MORE: Islamic extremist who plotted terrorist attack at defence base with Heaton Park synagogue murderer Jihad Al-Shamie jailed for life

READ MORE: How a born and bred Mancunian with no criminal history became 'firmly committed jihadist' intent on unleashing terror

MoD Shrivenham is the home of the UK’s Defence Academy, the court heard, which provides professional defence and security education to the British armed forces, wider UK government, UK industry and overseas personnel. Routinely, there will be up to 4,000 staff, contractors, students and visitors on site at any given time.

Sentencing Bashir, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb told him that by August last year he had become a “firmly committed jihadist” and together with Al-Shamie was “equally engaged and enthusiastic” in planning an attack on a British military target “in which you and he expected to kill and be killed”.

A fraudster who swindled £11.5 million from 115 victims in a “Ponzi scheme” targeting retired people has been jailed. The offending of Steven Long and his co-defendant Raymond Simpson came to light after the former’s wealth management business group Universal collapsed in 2018.

Homeowners of or near retirement age were lured in by Universal’s marketing seminars, which offered to manage and protect trust funds for inheritance planning.

Universal trustee and executor Long, of Stowmarket, Suffolk, was sentenced at Southwark Crown Court in July. Meanwhile, “respected” independent financial adviser Simpson – not a formal Universal staff member but described as “the primary mover in the deals” – was absent.

The court heard that he lives in Portugal a warrant for his arrest has been issued. The judge said many of the victims will find it a “bitter irony” that Simpson’s Portuguese home was paid for by a house sale and his wife’s inheritance.

A total of £11,574,814 of client money was lost by Universal, for which Long, 59, is ultimately responsible and has been charged over, prosecutor Charlene Sumnall told the court. Of that sum, Simpson, 79, was charged with defrauding £785,380 through investments and £615,000 by buying land in Spain.

Jailing Long for eight years and four months, Judge Gregory Perrins said: “Your offending has taken a very heavy toll on the lives of so many and you should feel deeply ashamed.” He said Long "abused the trust" of particularly vulnerable people "to keep your business running and so you and your family could enjoy all the trappings of wealth".

Judge Perrins said Long lied to clients when they inquired about their money and sent them letters saying their cash was “being held in interest-bearing accounts”. He said: “This was no doubt intended to offer them peace of mind – however, it was completely untrue. You were in fact using their money for your own ends in a number of different ways.”

Simpson was sentenced to five and a half years in his absence and Judge Perrins said he had assisted Long by using money taken from trust accounts to “invest in a series of increasingly reckless investments”.

A father fatally shook his four-week-old son while in a drunken rage. Tony Bartlett, 39, of Axminster, Devon, was convicted of murdering Atticus Bartlett following a trial at Bristol Crown Court.

Atticus, who weighed just 4.38kg when he died, suffered severe injuries at his home in Chard, Somerset, on July 16 2022. Mr Justice Cavanagh jailed Bartlett, formerly a postman, for life and ordered him to serve a minimum of 18 years in prison.

The judge described how Bartlett had drunk eight-and-a-half pints of lager while on a date night with Atticus’s mother before they returned home. He told Bartlett: “I have no doubt that this terrible tragedy would not have happened if you were not so intoxicated."

READ MORE: Baby’s injuries likened to high‑speed crash as Devon father found guilty of murder

The court heard that Bartlett had a "sudden fit of anger" while feeding Atticus as the baby was unsettled and not taking the bottle. The judge said the defendant "shook him very violently indeed, gripping him very tightly around his ribcage".

Emergency services were called and Atticus was taken to to Musgrove Park Hospital before being transferred to Bristol Royal Hospital for Children. His brain damage was so severe he did not regain consciousness or breathe for himself. Following medical tests, Atticus was taken off life support and died a week after the attack.

A former police officer was jailed for 10 years for sexual offences relating to unnecessary strip searches on young men in custody. Gerard Hutchings, 67, a former inspector with Hampshire Police, abused 18 male victims – aged between 17 and 31 at the time – at various police stations across the force area between 1999 and 2007.

Bristol Crown Court heard how Hutchings carried out the offences while alone with the victims, who had been arrested for minor offences, and sexually assaulted some of them during the procedures. He admitted 17 counts of misconduct in public office and was then convicted of a further 11 charges relating to sexual offending following a 10-day trial in March. These charges were five indecent assaults, five of causing a person to engage in a sexual activity without consent, and one of misconduct in public office.

Judge William Hart told Hutchings that his abuse of the victims, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, was “made more grave by the seniority of your rank”. He said: "Any decent and professional police officer, and thankfully almost all police officers fall into that category, would be sickened by your exploitation of these young men."

He told Hutchings: "All the offences involve abusing your power and position of authority as a police inspector to conduct, in private, completely unwarranted strip searches of male detainees and, in the case of those who gave evidence in the trial, to indecently assault them and cause them to engage in sexual activity against their will and without their consent. You enjoyed both the humiliation and obtained some perverted sexual gratification from what you did."

The defendant, of Ashurst, Southampton, was sacked in 2007 and jailed for 16 months at Lewes Crown Court the following year after admitting 10 counts of misconduct in a pubic office for similar offending.

Police launched a fresh investigation in 2020, following a new report, and used Hutchings’ police notebook along with custody records to identify 373 people he had been in contact with at police station. All of these people were visited by officers, with 17 of them providing video statements detailing how they had been subjected to unwarranted strip searches by Hutchings.

A mother and her new boyfriend were locked up for the sadistic murder of her two-year-old toddler who was also sexually assaulted. Isabelle Welsh suffered from weeks of abuse, including suffering 21 broken bones, before she collapsed at her home in Thornaby, Teesside, in September.

Alexandra Walker, 26, and her boyfriend Harrison Simpson, 22, were convicted of murder and child cruelty following a trial at Teesside Crown Court. He was also convicted of sexually assaulting Isabelle, while her mother was cleared of that charge.

Ms Justice Norton jailed the pair for life with minimum terms of 28 years and six months for Simpson and 22 years for Walker, both minus time spent on remand. The nine female jurors who heard the case were in court for the sentencing, as well as family members supporting Isabelle’s father, Josh Welsh.

Ms Justice Norton said the murder was the final act in a series of assaults which the pair tried to cover up. The judge said the mother delayed ringing 999 because she wrongly thought Isabelle was dead and was trying to work out a plan. The judge said: “I have no doubt whatsoever that your lack of urgency or concern for your child was because you wrongly believed that Isabelle was already dead, and you were working out what to do to save your own skin.”

Paul Abrahams, prosecuting, described the offending as "a campaign of quite deliberate extreme violence". Ms Justice Norton said Isabelle sustained an unsurvivable head injury in the 24 hours before she died in hospital. The girl was sexually assaulted around the time the fatal blow was inflicted, she added.

The court heard that Walker searched Simpson on the sex offenders’ register after she grew suspicious about his behaviour, which included bathing Isabelle without her consent. Isabelle’s mother called him a “paedophile”, she later told her own mother, but continued to date him.

Simpson did not answer police questions or give evidence at the trial and Walker “lied from start to finish”, the judge said, claiming to be more highly educated than she was, pretending she had breast cancer, telling people she did not take drugs when she actually sold them”. The mother claimed she did not drink much, but on the night Isabelle was murdered she downed 10 cans of Stella Artois.

The judge said both were jointly guilty of murder and child cruelty. The judge considered a whole life tariff for Simpson but could not be sure that the murder was sexually motivated, although it happened around the time of the fatal blow. She could not be sure because the jury cleared Walker of sexual assault, but convicted her of murder.

A serial killer will die in prison after being given whole life order. James Desborough, who was jailed for murdering two homeless men, is now at the centre of a police review into the deaths of four people who lived at the same hostel as him.

Desborough, 40, who was a fan of TV serial killer Dexter, murdered Claudio Aquilino, 57, and Daniel Coleman, 43, before dismembering, burning and hiding their remains in woods in Cornwall last year. Devon and Cornwall Police are now reviewing the deaths of four people who were living at the Sandy Lodge Hotel in Newquay at the same time as Desborough.

The former builder was already serving a life sentence for murdering his cellmate Steven Kempster, 65, whom he killed while on remand awaiting trial for these offences because of his snoring. The triple murderer is now a serial killer having killed three men in separate incidents over five months.

Desborough told a forensic biologist who was searching the woods for Mr Coleman’s body that he “particularly enjoyed the dismemberment scenes” in the television series Dexter.

Imposing two whole life orders at Winchester Crown Court, Mr Justice Saini said: "Having seen and heard you give evidence, and considering the circumstances in which you murdered Mr Kempster, I am sure that you are a highly dangerous individual who has no regard for the lives of people who you think are worthless. You are a person who can kill in extreme violence, with no remorse or, indeed, reflection on your actions."

READ MORE: Serial killer strangled prison cell mate over his snoring while on remand

READ MORE: Dexter fan double killer handed whole life order as more deaths probed

The judge described Desborough’s attempts to blame Mr Coleman for dismembering Mr Aquilino’s body as “disgraceful”. He said: "Although this false narrative does not increase your sentence, it does demonstrate the type of man you are and the depth to which you went to avoid responsibility."

Mr Aquilino and Mr Coleman, who both suffered from long-term addictions, had previously lived with Desborough at the hotel. Now, police are reviewing the deaths of two men and two women who died unexpectedly between December 2024 and March last year at the hotel while the serial killer was there.