Paul Warren left 54-year-old ex-police officer Martin Brown fatally injured while he headed to the local pub.
Browsing: UK crime
WTX News reports on the latest crimes around the United Kingdom.
In the UK the Home Office is responsible for the reduction and prevention of crime and oversees policing. The Ministry of Justice oversees prosecution and sentencing. For both victims and perpetrators, crime can mean lives are never the same again
Martin Rudin admitted killing retired teacher Gabriella Rudin at their home in Cambridgeshire, early last New Year’s Eve.
‘The police have to stop thinking their main task is to cover up misdemeanours.’
Nicola Bradley and Tracy Dixon snapped their friend’s parrot’s neck (Picture: UK Animal Cruelty Files)
Two women who went to a friend’s house after a boozy night out and tortured and killed his pet parrot will face prison.
Nicola Bradley, 35, and Tracy Dixon, 47, doused Paul Crooks’s beloved African grey parrot Sparky in cleaning products and put her in a tumble drier before breaking her neck.
Bradley and Dixon had stayed the night at Mr Crooks’s home after he collected them from the city centre after they’d been on a night out.
But while he was out they tortured the poor bird, covering Sparky in shaving foam and Mr Muscle and throwing her in a tumble drier before eventually snapping her neck.
Dixon and Bradley both blamed each other for what happened, but after appearing at Carlisle magistrates court they were both found guilty of causing unnecessary suffering to an animal.
Mr Crooks found Sparky dead shortly after Bradley and Dixon left his home on the morning of July 30 last year.
He said Sparky was a gift from a former partner and had lived with him for five years.
Describing the parrot, he told the court: ‘Sparky was absolutely fine.
‘She used to sing a regimental march, combined with God Save the Queen, and the Coronation Street and Emmerdale theme tunes.
‘She was also a hit with friends as she’d start singing when I talked to them on video calls around the world.’
He told the court Dixon called him at 5.30am on the morning in question as they couldn’t get a taxi home from a night out.
He gave them a lift, but went to bed shortly after bringing the women home because he’d been working all week.
When he woke at 8.30am and went to the kitchen to make a coffee, Bradley told him he would be ‘foaming’ with them as she looked towards Sparky’s cage.
He saw there was shaving foam on both the cage and the bird, and when he began cleaning away the shaving foam Bradley picked up a bottle of Mr Muscle to help him.
Mr Crooks told her that was the wrong spray, telling her to use a water spray.
Returning to the kitchen later, he saw Bradley had a spoon with black paint on it.
Mr Crooks went to a local shop, returning half an hour later to see both women leaving his home.
Entering the house, he saw feathers on the living room floor and more in the kitchen, but couldn’t see Sparky.
When he found her, he described her as a ‘wet, black mess’.
He said: ‘I looked on top of the fridge freezer and on top of the kitchen unit but I couldn’t see Sparky.
‘Then I looked at her cage and noticed this unrecognisable mess, with her head hanging out of the cage.
‘She was just unrecognisable, covered in black substances. I started to panic.
‘I didn’t know what to do.’
Bradley and Dixon, who were granted bail, will be sentenced on August 22 at Carlisle crown court where magistrates warned they would face prison sentences.
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Not all heroes wear capes.
‘Joe wanted nothing more than to grow up and be a dad.’
The size of the payout would reportedly make it one of the largest in British policing history.
They had sexual relationships with three women, some of which they met while responding to domestic abuse incidents.
‘It has rocked the whole community. Everyone around here knows Rob and Rose.’
The teenager was stabbed to death at a party on Friday night.
This is a breaking news story. More to follow.
Claire Scanlon was called ‘selfish’, with the judge saying she wanted to ‘take her son away from’ those who loved him.
‘No-one ever contacted me to ask if I was ok.’
Daniel Cuthbert, 42, drained his dad’s life savings over a 14-month period between 2017 and 2018.
Vishal Gohel was expecting to have sex with two women who had actually planned to rob him with the help of three men.
The fraudster stole a total of £181,958.95 over the course of 139 separate transactions dating as far back as January 2017.
Lilia Valutyte was pronounced dead at the scene (Picture: PA)
A jury has been shown CCTV footage of the moment a nine-year-old girl was stabbed to death in broad daylight during the trial of the man accused of her murder.
Lilia Valutyte died from a single stab wound to the heart as she played outside a shop where her mum was working in Boston, Lincolnshire, last year.
The suspect, Deividas Skebas, is undergoing a trial of facts rather than a traditional criminal trial because he is not fit to plead or stand.
Before the trial began on Monday judge Mrs Justice McGowan DBE told the jury: ‘You are not going to be asked to say guilty or not guilty because this is not a normal trial.
‘The defendant in this case is seriously mentally ill and he is not here and can’t play a proper part in the trial.
‘It has already been decided that he is unfit to plead because of his mental illness.
‘What you are going to be asked to do is not to say whether he is guilty or not guilty but whether he is responsible for the acts.
‘This is a serious and sad case and you will be reminded a number of times to try and put emotion to one side.
‘It is important that when you come to decide whether or not you are sure he did it that however sad you found the case, you put that to one side and make a logical and clear decision.’
She was only nine years old (Picture: PA)
She was playing in the street outside a shop when she was attacked (Picture: PA)
Opening the trial at Lincoln crown court, prosecutor Christopher Donnellan KC showed the jury of six men and six women a video showing a man, alleged to be Skebas, running towards Lilia before stabbing her and running away.
He said Skebas, 23, first came to the UK from Lithuania in 2020, returning to his home country before coming back to the UK in July 2022.
After arriving in Boston he was seen on CCTV buying a paring knife from a Wilko shop in the town centre two days before the killing.
In one clip, moments before her death, Lilia was seen playing outside the shop in which her mother worked, with the man whom the Crown claims was Skebas seen standing at the top of Fountain Lane.
The man, in a grey T-shirt and jeans, was then seen walking towards his victim, with Lilia moving out of the way as he approached before he stabbed her and ran away.
Mr Donnellan said: ‘Just after 6.15pm in the late afternoon, early evening of July 28 last year, Lilia Valutyte, a little girl aged nine, was playing outside a shop where her mother was actually working in Boston town centre.
‘The defendant, Mr Skebas, approached, quickening his pace as he moved towards (her), then reaching behind his back.
‘He pulled out a knife. He continued with his pace. He thrust the knife straight into her chest and through into her heart.
‘Although within less than a minute an off-duty police officer who was just going home and was nearby came to her aid, and was followed by other officers and the ambulance, sadly her life could not be saved and she was formally pronounced dead at 7.11pm that evening.
‘The prosecution case is that he unlawfully killed her with that single stab wound to the chest.
‘You are only deciding whether he did it. You don’t have to decide about his intention or indeed about his mental state.’
Police issued this CCTV image during their appeal for information (Picture: PA)
Lilia’s coffin was covered in butterflies (Picture: PA)
Skebas ran past Detective Constable Andrew Pearson, who was off-duty at the time.
Giving evidence, DC Pearson said he heard a ‘metallic clank’ and was about to chase the man who ran past him before he heard an ‘anguished scream’ from behind him.
Skebas was arrested on July 30 after a public appeal. He was interviewed a day later but gave what Mr Donnellan described as a ‘bizarre’ explanation for the killing.
Mr Donnellan said: ‘He admitted that he had stabbed Lilia. He admitted he has seen (her) playing in the street. He identified himself in the CCTV extracts.’
A search of Skebas’s home in Thorold Street, Boston, found a paring knife deemed consistent with the murder weapon.
The trial is estimated to last two days, but he did not appear on Monday and will play no part in proceedings.
Andrew Campbell-Tiech KC, appointed by the court to mitigate on the defendant’s behalf, told the jury: ‘We have a highly emotive case where the desire to blame runs very high.
‘The more horrendous the case, the greater the desire to blame. The greater the pressure to blame, the greater the risk to attach it to an individual identified.
‘We are not in a position to challenge evidence because we have no instructions.
‘We are appointed by the court to test that evidence.’
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The incident happened this afternoon.
‘James is dangerous and it is clear from the extent of his offending, that he has no awareness of the impact his actions have had on the lives of others.’
Stephen and Carol Baxter were found unresponsive by their daughter Ellie Baxter in their home in West Mersea, Essex.
The shocking incident happened mid-flight.
Jaswant Singh Chail confided his plot to Artificial Intelligence girlfriend ‘Sarai’ who egged him on, the Old Bailey heard.
Karen Foster, 61, of no fixed address, will appear before Blackburn Magistrates’ Court this morning.
The child was found dead inside a property.
Astonishingly, the police got wind of the sneaky crime and arrested him on the spot.