CPS News Brief

Teenager sentenced for Derby knife murder

A 16-year-old has been sentenced to 14 years in custody for the murder of 22-year-old Tom Webb, who was stabbed to death in the centre of Derby in January 2016.

Haris Mohammed stabbed Mr Webb after an argument triggered by a passing comment alleged to have been made by one of Mr Webb’s friends. During the argument, Mohammed produced a butterfly knife he was carrying and stabbed Mr Webb in the chest.

He was prosecuted for murder, found guilty by a jury at Nottingham Crown Court and today sentenced to life in custody, with a minimum term of 14 years.

Karen Thompson, Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor for CPS East Midlands said:

“Tom Webb’s murder was a completely senseless and tragic waste of a young life. There was no need for Haris Mohammed to be carrying a knife, there was no need for any kind of confrontation, and there was certainly no need to use the knife on Mr Webb.

“These were all choices made by Haris Mohammed. He claimed that he had acted in self-defence, but the prosecution’s case was that he was the aggressor.

“My heartfelt sympathies are with Tom’s family and friends. They have had to endure a terrible loss and I hope that the conclusion of this case will enable them to start to rebuild their lives.”

Background:

Tom Webb was killed on 19 January 2016. He was walking through the centre of Derby with two friends when one of them was heard to say that a girl with another group was ‘fit’. The four boys in that group went to fetch their friends, including Mohammed, from the nearby McDonalds to follow and confront Mr Webb and his friends.

During the argument, Mohammed produced the knife and threatened Mr Webb with it. Mr Webb said to him that he (Mohammed) would not use the knife and would not stab him. Mohammed then stabbed Mr Webb in the chest and ran.

Five other young people are charged with violent disorder for their part in the argument. Proceedings against these individuals are still active.

Cybercriminal “Sir King Cash” ordered to pay back over half a million pounds

Fraudster Sean Benson, who went by the screen name “Sir King Cash”, has been ordered to pay back £554,000 by a judge at Southwark Crown Court. Benson now has 3 months in which to pay back the money or face a further 5 years in jail. All of the money will be paid back to the victims of the fraud.

Benson bought stolen bank card details from Russian hackers and used them to buy music from his own struggling online business over the course of a year. 

He and his partner spent the money on a lavish lifestyle, including £40,000 on their wedding and a honeymoon in Hawaii. The two were found guilty of fraud and money laundering in July 2015 and Benson was given a 7 year prison sentence.

Anthony Hill, Specialist Prosecutor with the CPS International Justice and Organised Crime Division said: “Criminals need to understand that we do not stop at conviction. If you are a criminal trying to benefit financially from the misery of others, we will go after your ill-gotten gains and return it to the victims. 

“It’s important to cut off this flow of cash, not only so criminals don’t benefit from their illegal activity, but also that their money may not be used to fund further crime.”

Notes to Editors

A Confiscation Order was made in the sum of £554,000. Benson has 3 months to pay and the default sentence for non-payment is 5 years imprisonment.

A Deprivation Order was made in respect of 3 computers and a phone used to commit the crime. 

A Serious Crime Prevention Order was made for a period of 5 years from release from prison.

Jail for men who conspired to illegally bring 18 Albanians into the UK

Two men have been sentenced to a total of nine years for conspiring to bring 18 Albanians illegally into the UK.

Robert Stilwell and Mark Stribling had both pleaded guilty to conspiring to assist illegal immigration at a previous hearing at Maidstone Crown Court. Stilwell was sentenced to four years and four months, while Stribling was sentenced to four years and eight months.

To bring the migrants ashore safely, local lifeboats had to be launched in the early hours of 29 May 2016, supported by Border Force Cutter Valiant and a search and rescue helicopter. The defendants had originally claimed they had rescued the group on their rigid hulled inflatable boat. The rescue took around one and a half hours in difficult conditions, with a mid to rough sea swell and moderate to poor visibility. One woman needed medical treatment, after showing signs of hypothermia.

Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor for CPS South East Kris Venkatasami said:

“This was an appalling case where the two defendants tried to bring this group of vulnerable migrants into the UK ashore illegally. Those on the boat had paid 6,000 Euros each to make the trip, which nearly cost them their lives. Not long after leaving France, the battery appears to have failed on the boat and water started flooding in, leaving those on board to frantically try to bail it out as fast as they could.

“Had it not been for the Border Force Cutter Valiant and the local lifeboats, we may well have seen a tragedy just off the British coastline, especially as the only people in the boat wearing life jackets were the defendants. They had deliberately planned to illegally bring people into the UK for their own financial gain and wilfully put the lives of those people at risk.”

James Warnock convicted 34 years after rape and murder

James Warnock, 56, was sentenced today at the Central Criminal Court to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 25 years for the murder of seventeen-year old Yiannoulla Yianni in August 1982. He was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for the rape of Yiannoulla. Warnock was convicted on 14 July 2016. The crimes took place in Yiannoulla’s home, where she lived with her family, in Hampstead, north London.

Aisling Hosein, CPS London reviewing lawyer, said:

“More than three decades since this terrible crime, James Warnock has finally been brought to justice.

“Warnock has callously maintained his innocence throughout the case and even insisted that he had a sexual relationship with Yiannoulla in the weeks leading up to her death. He also claimed that he had not heard anything of Yiannoulla’s murder at the time, despite the high profile investigation. This was completely implausible and his claims of a relationship were contradicted by the evidence.

“I would like to thank Yiannoulla’s family for their support of the prosecution and for giving evidence in court, which must have been a harrowing experience after 34 years. Warnock’s continuing lies have only served to cause more pain to the family but I hope that his conviction today can bring them some small comfort.

“This conviction should send a strong message that people who commit such serious crimes can be brought to justice many years later and we are committed to working with our police partners to ensure that perpetrators are held accountable for their actions.”

Background

On the afternoon of 13 August 1982 Yiannoulla had returned to the family home alone to prepare the family’s evening meal. She had been with her mother to visit her father at his shop before returning home. At around 2pm a man was seen at her door. This man forced his way into the house and attacked, raped and strangled Yiannoulla. She was found by her parents when they returned home at around 2.45pm.

Despite extensive investigations by the police at the time Yiannoulla’s attacker could not be found. However, in August 2001 the case was formally re-opened due to advances in DNA techniques. Warnock was arrested for an unrelated matter in December 2015 and his DNA matched samples from the crime scene.

Warnock pleaded guilty on 15 July 2016 to six counts of distributing indecent images of children. He was sentence to a total of four years, to run concurrently.

CPS Statement on death of Poppi Worthington

A CPS Spokesperson said: "The CPS has looked at the original decision in this case that there was insufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction - as we often do in other cases. We have reached the same conclusion."

Further information

It is not the function of the CPS to decide whether a person is guilty of a criminal offence, but to make fair, independent and objective assessments about whether it is appropriate to present charges for the criminal to consider.

The CPS assessment of any case is not in any sense a finding of, or implication of, any guilt or criminal conduct. It is not a finding of fact, which can only be made by a court, but rather an assessment of what it might be possible to prove to a court, in accordance with the Code for Crown Prosecutors.

This assessment is based on the evidence available arising out of the police investigation and not on the evidence that is likely to be gathered by the defence, and likely to be used to test the prosecution evidence. The CPS charging decision is therefore necessarily an assessment in the basis of the evidence that is available to the CPS at the time the decision is made.

CPS prosecutors must also keep every case under review, so that they take account of any change in circumstances that occurs as the case develops, including what becomes known of the defence case. If appropriate, the CPS may change the charges or stop a case.

All queries to CPS on 07699 781 926

More hate crimes prosecuted by the Crown Prosecution Service than ever before

More hate crimes prosecuted by the Crown Prosecution Service than ever before

The Crown Prosecution Service is prosecuting a record number of hate crimes, a report published today shows.

In the past year, the CPS has prosecuted 15,442 hate crimes – a 4.8 per cent rise on the previous year (2014/15), which also saw a 4.7 per cent increase from the year before that (2013/14). 

The CPS’s eighth Hate Crime Report details a 41 per cent increase in disability hate crime prosecutions, compared to 2014/15, alongside the highest conviction rate for homophobic and transphobic prosecutions. 

In addition, there has been the highest proportion of sentence uplifts in racially and religiously aggravated crime cases, which comprise 84 per cent of all hate crime prosecutions. 

Alison Saunders, Director of Public Prosecutions said, 

“My message is that a hate crime is exactly that – a crime – and will not be ignored. Hate crime creates fear and has a devastating impact on individuals and communities. Nobody should have to go about their day to day life in fear of being attacked. 

“This report shows that more of these incidents are being recognised as hate crimes, so they are reported, investigated and prosecuted as such. It is important that this trend continues and no one should simply think that this abuse – on or offline – will be dismissed or ignored. 

“More than four in five prosecuted hate crimes result in a conviction, which is good news for victims. Over 73 per cent are guilty pleas – this means that more defendants are pleading guilty due to the strength of the evidence and prosecution case, so victims do not have to go through the process of a trial. 

“The CPS has undertaken considerable steps to improve our prosecution of hate crime and we will continue this improvement.”

The CPS today also announced a commitment to consult publically in relation to revised policy statements on all strands of hate crime (racially and religiously motivated, homophobic and transphobic, and disability hate crime) which will reflect the CPS’s approach to the prosecution of these crimes. Following this, CPS legal guidance for each strand will also be updated to reflect the developments. 

In addition, further engagement will take place with community partners and stakeholders in the form of Local Scrutiny and Involvement Panels, and National Scrutiny Panels. The CPS will also liaise closely with the College of Policing and the National Police Chiefs’ Council to ensure that these commitments are delivered. 

Solicitor General Robert Buckland said, 

“Tackling hate crime has always been a priority for the Government. We have worked extensively to improve our collective response to this issue and in particular to improve recording of hate crime, so that we now have a fuller picture of the scale of the problem.” 

Hate crime overall

• The conviction rate across all strands of hate crime was 83.2% in 2015/16 and 82.9% in 2014/15. 
• The proportion of successfully completed prosecutions with an announced and recorded sentence uplift was 11.8% in 2014/15, an increase from 4.1% the previous year. In 2015/16, recorded sentence uplifts reached 33.8%. 
• The number of hate crime cases referred, by the police to the CPS, for decision in 2014/15 was 14,376 which was an increase of 2.2% on the previous year’s figure. In 2015/16 the number of referrals decreased by 9.6% to 12,997.  
• In 2014/15, the number of completed prosecutions increased nationally by 4.7% on the previous year. Again, in 2015/16 the percentage increase was 4.8%. 

Racially and religiously aggravated hate crime

• In 2014/15, the conviction rate for racially and religiously aggravated hate crime was 83.5%. In 2015/16 the conviction rate was 83.8%.
• In 2015/16, the CPS prosecuted 13,032 racially and religiously aggravated hate crimes.  
• Guilty pleas featured in 74.0% of successful outcomes of racially and religiously aggravated crime prosecutions in 2015/16. 

Homophobic and transphobic hate crime

• In 2014/15, the conviction rate for homophobic and transphobic crime was 81.2%. In 2015/16, the rate increased to 83.0%.
• In 2014/15, the CPS prosecuted 1,277 homophobic and transphobic cases, and this increased to 1,439 in 2015/16. 
• In 2014/15, the police referred 56 transphobic cases to the CPS for charging decision. This figure rose to 98 in 2015/16. There were 37 completed prosecutions under the transphobic crime flag on the CPS digital case management system in 2014/15 and 85 the following year.  
• In relation to defendants in transphobic cases, in 2014/15, 26 (70.3%) were men and 11 (29.7%) were women: a disclosure rate of 100.0%. In 2015/16, 66 (77.6%) were men and 19 (22.4%) were women.
• In relation to victims in cases of transphobic hate crime, in 2014/15, 20 (57.1%) were women and 12 (34.3%) were men (with a disclosure rate of 91.4%).  In 2015/16, these figures were 51 (52.0%) were women and 27 (27.6%) were men (with a disclosure rate of 79.6%). 

Disability hate crime 

• The volume of cases referred to the CPS by the police for a charging decision increased from 849 in 2014/15 to 930 in 2015/16, an increase of 9.5%.  
• The number of convictions increased over the two years from 503 in 2014/15 to 707 last year, an increase of 40.6%.
• The conviction rate remained broadly consistent over the two years at 75.1%. 
• The proportion of successful outcomes arising from guilty pleas was 66.1% in 2014/15 and fell slightly to 63.4% in 2015/16. 

Notes to editors

1. You can find the full report here: http://www.cps.gov.uk/publications/docs/cps_hate_crime_report_2016.pdf
2. The report includes three separate strands of hate crime with statistics from the past two years. In addition, the report contains information about the prosecution of crimes against older people

Plymouth teen convicted of cyber-attacks and US airline bomb hoaxes

Today, a 16-year-old has been convicted at Plymouth Youth Court of cyber-attacks on a number of websites and tweeting bomb hoaxes to two major US airlines.

One of the hoax threats to the Twitter account of American Airlines read: “One of those lovely boeing airplanes has a nice tick tick tick in it, hurry gentlemen, the clock’s ticking…” 

He also carried out a series of online attacks – known as Distributed Denial of Service - in which a large amount of data is sent to a website over a short period of time causing the site to become overwhelmed and in some cases to temporarily crash. The sites targeted included those of Devon and Cornwall Police and SeaWorld in Florida.

 

Ben Samples, senior crown prosecutor for the South West said:

“The defendant knew what he was doing was wrong and deliberately targeted a number of websites causing them to crash temporarily. One of those websites was that of Devon and Cornwall Police, making it much harder for the public to access the help and support they needed.

“I hope this will send a message to anyone who thinks they can hide online or use social media to create a climate of fear that they will have to face the consequences of their actions.”

Sentencing will take place at a later date.

 

Notes to Editors

 

•               This young offender was convicted of five counts – 

o   Section 3 Computer Misuse Act 1990 (Unauthorised acts with intent to impair operation of or prevent / hinder access to a computer) – three counts 

o   Section 51 of the Criminal Law Act 1977 (communicating a bomb hoax) – two counts

•               The offences took place between October 2014 and February 2015 and the offender was arrested by Devon and Cornwall Police on 25 February 2015. The two hoax bomb threats were both made on 13th February 2015.They were to American Airlines and Delta Airlines.

•               On Monday 26th January 2015 between 21.21hrs and 22.04hrs, a Distributed Denial of Service attack successfully targeted the Devon and Cornwall Police public website rendering it unavailable for 43 minutes.

•               The offender cannot be named as he was under-16 when the offences took place.

•               The hearing took place at Plymouth Youth Court on Tuesday 28th June 2016 before District Judge Baker when the offender pleaded guilty to three counts under the Computer Misuse Act. On Wednesday 6^th July he was convicted on the remaining two counts of communicating a bomb hoax. 

•               Sentencing was adjourned to a later date pending the judge’s request for reports on the offender.