A man who strangled his mother and bludgeoned her partner to death with a hammer, a child rapist, drug gangs, and another male who murdered a cyclist during an attack with a knuckleduster, were among those given the longest jail sentences in 2020 in and near Lincolnshire.
Outside of England, the man who strangled former Lincoln student Grace Millane to death in New Zealand, was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of 17 years jail time earlier this year. He was named as Jesse Kempson earlier this month after a New Zealand court order banning his identification was lifted.
Judges in and near the county also handed out prison sentences this year. Here’s a summary of court reports from 2020 covered on The Lincolnite, with sentences in descending order and of a minimum of 10 years.
Over 250 years in prison for drug gang
The drug gang have now all been sentenced. | Photo: Lincolnshire Police
Drug dealers involved in bringing vast amounts of cocaine and heroin into Lincolnshire were given lengthy jail sentences.
In total, 25 people were sentenced in connection to the major investigation. The total jail sentences imposed amounted to over 250 years.
Jordan West, Leslie Aytoun, Craig Owen, Lisa Michaelson, Trevor Willoughby and Dean Hall have all been jailed. | Photo: Humberside Police
An organised crime group operating in Grimsby were jailed for a combined total of over 56 years after a complex investigation into county lines drug supply and dealing.
Humberside Police said the ringleaders behind the drug operation were based in Merseyside and Grimsby.
Scott Hendry, Andres Vassou, Jamie Shaw, Reece Navarro and Lee Healey are all behind bars. | Photo: Humberside Police
A male computer software student who strangled his mother and bludgeoned her partner to death with a hammer was convicted of their murders and jailed for life.
Andrei-Mihai Simion-Munteanu, 22, left the bodies of Leela Monti, 51, and Robert Tully, 71, at his mother’s bungalow on Lincoln Road, Branston, after carrying out the killings.
He was jailed for life and ordered to serve a minimum of 32 years before he can be considered for parole.
A Scunthorpe child rapist, who was jailed for life, was caught when he took indecent pictures and uploaded them online.
David Hough, 56, of Derwent Road in Scunthorpe, maintained his innocence until the final day of the trial, forcing his three victims to relive the ordeal in court.
Oliver Wilson and Rebecca Holloway were found guilty of rape and sexual offences against children. | Photo: Lincolnshire Police
A man and a woman from Lincolnshire who struck up a twisted relationship with each other were sentenced to a combined 48 years in prison for rape and sexual offences against children.
Oliver Wilson, 28, of Donington, Spalding was handed a prison sentence of 34-and-a-half years.
Rebecca Holloway, 26, of Rutland Street in Grimsby, was jailed for 13-and-a-half years.
A Grimsby man who raped a child for years was jailed for more than two decades.
Kenneth Leslie Mantle, 62, of Willingham Street, Grimsby was sentenced to 24 years in prison after a four-day trial and all the offences happened in North East Lincolnshire.
Ralph Stevenson will serve 22 years in prison. | Photo: Nottinghamshire Police
A 76-year-old pensioner could spend the rest of his life in prison after being found guilty of rape and indecent assault on a young girl in the 1970s and 80s.
Ralph Stevenson was jailed for 22 years for repeatedly assaulting the girl at multiple addresses in the Nottingham area.
Ian Hamer will serve 22 years in prison for murdering his wife Joanne. | Photo: Humberside Police
Ian Hamer was sentenced to 22 years in prison for the murder of his wife Joanne Hamer, a local councillor in North Lincolnshire.
Ian Hamer, of Main Street, Worlaby, near Brigg, was convicted after the body of his wife Joanne, 48, a senior public health official for North Lincolnshire Council, was found at their home on May 6, 2019.
A man who was part of a group that brutally stabbed and beat up a man in the street in Grimsby has been jailed for 15 years.
The incident on Monday, October 14, 2019, left the victim seriously injured and an investigation was launched. Four days later (October 18), the victim was approached in the street again by Liam Milligan, who intimidated him by making threats of violence.
Henry Froggatt was sentenced to 14 years and 10 months in jail. | Photo: Humberside Police
A man described as a “vile rapist” has been jailed for over 14 years after viciously attacking and raping a woman in Grimsby.
The woman was walking home on Railway Street in Grimsby when Henry Froggatt grabbed her from behind and took her phone before pushing her onto the floor, assaulting her repeatedly and carrying out his attack.
Froggatt was sentenced to 10 years and 10 months in prison, with an extra four years added on as he has been classed as a dangerous offender.
Nigel Wright was jailed for 14 years. | Photo: Hertfordshire Constabulary
A Lincolnshire farmer has been jailed for 14 years after contaminating baby food with metal as part of a £1.4 million bitcoin scheme where he tried blackmailing Tesco.
Father-of-two Nigel Wright, 45, from Market Rasen tried to extort £1.4 million from the supermarket chain between May 2018 and February 2020.
Lee Ives and Michael Bartholomew have each been jailed for 12 years. | Photo: Lincolnshire Police
Two men were each jailed for 12 years for attempting to stab an Alford home owner during an aggravated burglary, after they broke into the “wrong house”.
Lee Ives and Michael Bartholomew entered the property in Alford before the owner found them in the kitchen on December 10, 2017. They then began an assault, punching and stamping on him, whilst also attempting to stab him with a knife.
David Wright has been jailed for 12 years. | Photo: Lincolnshire Police
David Wright was jailed for 12 years for a string of historical child sex offences including raping a young girl.
Wright, 79, lived in Bardney at the time of the offences, which date back to between the 1970s and 1980s, appeared at Lincoln Crown Court back in February.
Kevin Haigh was jailed 11 years. | Photo: Humberside Police
A Cleethorpes man was jailed for 11 years after attempting to kidnap a teenage girl in a ‘vicious attack’.
The attack happened on June 3 this year when Kevin Haigh approached the girl on Kings Road, close to the junction with Chichester Road. The court heard how he spoke to the teen before putting gaffer tape on her face.
The court heard that Nathan Booth, 30, was “dangerous”. | Photo: Lincolnshire Police
A man convicted of raping a woman after repeatedly punching her during a sustained attack was jailed for 10 years.
Nathan Booth, described as a powerfully built man, inflicted a broken rib, chipped teeth, black eyes, and cuts and bruises to his victim after treating her “like a punch-bag” during an incident in October last year.
Christopher Webster was jailed for 10 years. | Photo: Nottinghamshire Police
A man who deliberately started a fire at his ex-partner’s house and also threatened a woman and her daughter with a knife was jailed for 10 years.
Christoper Webster, of Victoria Terrace in Newark, deliberately started a fire at his ex-partner’s house at around midday before making calls and sending messages to her and her family. He then left the property and went to Churchill Road in Newark, where he threatened a woman and her daughter with a knife before stealing the woman’s car.
Vincas Baltrusaitis, who was already serving a 14-year prison sentence for grievous bodily harm, was jailed for a further five-and-a-half years.
Baltrusaitis was deported back to Lithuania in 2017 with the condition that he could not return to the UK prior to December 2024 when his full prison sentence would have been served. He was arrested in Grimsby in April this year and admitted further offences of possession of cocaine with intent to supply, possession of false identity documents and entering the UK in breach of a deportation order.
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South Kesteven District Councillors have approved a £1.3million spend to demolish the majority of the former Cummins site in Stamford in order to start building a major new development.
The council’s St Martin’s Park proposals for the site, along with a field next door owned by Burgley Estate, were approved in October and the authority’s full council on Thursday voted in favour of putting the money aside to move forward with the build.
When finished, the Barnack Road development will include 190 new homes, a retirement village of a further 150 homes and a series of business units.
It will also include a convenience store and café, as well as public open space and cycle and pedestrian access to the parkland to the south of the site.
Council leader Conservative Councillor Kelham Cooke said: “ThisisthenextstageinthejourneyofStMartinsPark andpresentsthedistrictwithanamazingopportunitynotjustinStamfordbutacrossthewholeofthesouthofthedistrict.
“St Martinsgivesustheopportunitytonotonlycaptureanumberofbusinesseslookingforafootprintinthetown,butalsotorealisehigh-skilledhigh-wageemploymentopportunitiesto for existingandfutureresidentsofourtown.”
The demolition will see the removal of all but one of the buildings on the site.
SKDC bought the site for £7.5million in 2019 and declared it in its corporate plan for 2020-23 as being strategically important for its growth ambitions.
Councillor Nick Robinson supported the report, adding: “It’sanexcitingtimebothforthethemix of changeswe’rebringinginthedevelopmentandfortheexpansionofStamford.”
Councillors were mostly in support, though some had questions around climate change, the finances and just a £250,000 contribution from Burghley Estate.
The councillors delegated authority to the chief executive, in consultation with the leader of the council, and enter into a contract with GF Tomlinson to undertake the works.
A year six teacher with coronavirus has been teaching her class virtually from home as a Lincolnshire primary school continues to battle against staff shortages.
The Richmond School in Skegness had 20 staff off last week, meaning some children had to be sent home. At one point there was just one adult for 60 children, which the school decided “wasn’t safe”, so the reception class was closed last week, as well as on Monday, January 24.
This week there are 14 staff off sick and the school is working hard to manage the situation.
But year six teacher Emma Green was determined to carry on and is teaching her class virtually from home while recovering from coronavirus.
She told BBC Look North: “I have been told on numerous occasions I don’t need to, however I don’t feel that poorly so I feel like I still need to give and I still want to be part of the class.
“We’ve been quite short across the school, particularly lower down in the school, so anything that I can do to help if that means my teaching assistants can be deployed somewhere else and I can teach my class then that’s fine.”
Headteacher Caroline Wellsted said: “It meant we had to close our reception class for the whole of last week and Monday of this week because I only had one adult in school for 60 children and it just wasn’t safe.
“There have been other odd days when I’ve had to close just one class in some year groups because staffing levels have dipped to an unsafe level.”
When asked how school staff in the county have been affected since they returned from the Christmas break Martin Smith, assistant director for education at Lincolnshire County Council, told The Lincolnite: “This continues to be a challenging time for schools, who are regularly having to deal with staff absences. Every school is different and the situation changes on a daily basis.
“However, at this time, schools are managing to adapt and remain open. I want to thank school leaders and their teams for their resilience and commitment at this time.”
Grimsby’s Freshney Place shopping centre has been placed into receivership.
The struggling shopping centre is now in the hands of its lenders following financial difficulties.
It will remain open as normal, with former owners Capreon continuing as the centre’s managers.
North East Lincolnshire Council say plans for Grimsby’s new cinema and market hall are still being worked on.
Receivers Cushman and Wakefield were appointed on January 18.
This happened days before the landlord of New Look – whose landlord is not Freshney Place – unexpectedly left the lease.
Letters have been sent to Freshney Place traders in the past week informing them of the change.
It is another blow to retail in Grimsby town centre after two years of challenges from the pandemic.
“However, Capreon have assured residents that work will continue to develop the planned multi-screen cinema and new market hall, which are a joint venture between Freshney Place and North East Lincolnshire Council.
A spokesman for Capreon said: “We can confirm that Cushman & Wakefield were appointed as Fixed Charged Receivers over Freshney Place Shopping Centre on January 18, 2022.
“Capreon has been retained by the receivers to continue their role as asset managers for the shopping centre which will remain open for trading as normal.
“We will, of course, also continue to work with North East Lincolnshire Council in the delivery of the proposed new cinema and market hall for the town centre following the successful award of the Future High Street Fund grant monies last year.”
North East Lincolnshire Council said the receivership will not affect plans for regenerating the high street.
A spokesperson for the council said: “As reported, Capreon has confirmed that it is to continue its role as asset managers for the centre and will continue to work with us in the delivery of the proposed cinema and market hall for the town centre following the successful award of the Future High Street Fund grant monies last year.
“The situation therefore remains unchanged, and we move forward with our plans for the complete regeneration of the Western side of the centre taking in the existing Market Hall.”
North East Lincolnshire Council and Freshney Place are to both contribute £5million towards the project, with £17.2million being provided by the national Future High Streets Fund.
Demolition on the existing market hall is expected to begin later this year if a planning application is approved.
Freshney Place were approached for comment and a spokesperson said they had nothing to add to the statement released by Capreon.
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