We have taken a look at the year in crime following court cases that have been heard in Oxford from January to June 2023 as part one of this feature.
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JANUARY
A ‘selfish’ skate park rapist was jailed for four-and-a-half years.
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Judge Maria Lamb told Spinks, now 22: “It was all about self-gratification and although your victim was prepared to accept a certain amount of intimacy between you, she made it quite clear that she was not consenting to sexual intercourse with you.”
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A gunman said to have shot a driver through the window of his Vauxhall Corsa on Cowley Road was jailed for more than two years in January.
Emman Riasat, 21, was caught on CCTV running from a smoky-windowed BMW saloon with a gun in his outstretched hand shortly before the ‘shooting’ at the junction with Crown Street on July 24.
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He could be seen clinging on to passenger side of a slowly-moving Corsa before aiming his weapon through the open window then fleeing the scene.
Riasat was jailed for 25 months.
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A ‘predator’ planned to meet what he thought was a 12-year-old girl for sex in the Westgate shopping centre toilets, Oxford's court heard.
It was not, however, a pre-teen called ‘Megan’ who Jonathan Chapman met at Oxford railway station on September 5, 2021, but members of vigilante ‘paedophile hunter’ group Secretly Tackling Online Predators UK.
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The confrontation was taped and the 24-year-old defendant recorded admitting he was there to meet the 12-year-old but claimed he was not intending to have sex with her.
He was jailed for four years and four months
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A van driver left a 16-year-old boy for dead after ploughing into the bus stop at which the child was waiting.
Oxford Crown Court heard in January that police officers found the boy ‘covered in blood’ and lying on the grass verge on Middleton Stoney Road, Bicester, on March 19 surrounded by debris from the bus stop.
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The police were called to another crash further down the road, where a vehicle appeared to have struck a traffic island.
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A trail of diesel led officers to Bruno Viveiros heavily-damaged Vauxhall Vivaro van. They found a letter inside addressed to the 40-year-old and realised he lived only a few doors down from where the van was parked up.
Viverios was jailed for three years.
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A repeat burglar broke into a lone woman’s house – then claimed she was looking for a man called Ben.
Kimberley Young’s victim was shocked to see the 51-year-old at her bedroom door on the morning of March 29, Oxford Crown Court heard.
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The burglar was said to have apologised and run out of the house in Manor Road, Ducklington. She left the young woman, alone in the house save for her dog, ‘terrified’.
She was jailed for 29 months.
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A teen girl found guilty of manslaughter in connection with Keith Green’s death walked from court with a youth rehabilitation order.
The 16-year-old, who cannot be identified after Judge Ian Pringle KC refused to lift the reporting restriction protecting her anonymity, opened the side gate to 40-year-old Mr Green’s Howard Road home – allowing his murderers Mark Meadows and Travis Gorton to lie in wait near the shed where he was stabbed to death.
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Judge Pringle said the girl had played a ‘minor role’ in the ‘desperately sorry and tragic incident’ on the eve of Valentine’s Day last year.
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FEBRUARY
A pair of charity shop workers spotted a couple engaged in oral sex, a court heard.
Prosecutor Liz Tweed told Oxford Magistrates’ Court that the two shop assistants were at the till shortly after 4pm on April 6 last year when they looked out the window.
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They saw Jake Smith, 32, together with a woman in St Ebbes Street. The woman was said to have "lowered herself down to the general waist area of Mr Smith, who was standing, and – basically – started having oral sex with Mr Smith", the prosecutor told the court.
He received a four week prison sentence.
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Five people were arrested at traffic filter protests, Thames Valley Police said.
At least four of the five are understood to have been arrested on suspicion of public order offences.
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Police estimated that ‘approximately 2,000 people’ attended the main protest and march in February, which began in Broad Street before walking to Manzil Way down Cowley Road and then back into town.
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A woman was banned from every Sainsbury’s in England, after she admitted trying to steal £1,776-worth of cosmetics from the Heyford Hill superstore.
Appearing before Oxford Magistrates’ Court on February 1, Mariana Cristea, 23, of Lynton Road, Peterborough, pleaded guilty to theft. She had no previous convictions, prosecutor Ann Sawyer-Brandish said.
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The justices heard that she went into the Sainsbury’s shop near Littlemore on the evening of Monday, January 30.
The prosecutor said: “She placed a number of cosmetic items into a bag. She was seen and she was followed when she left the store. She hadn’t paid for the items and the items were all recovered.”
Following her arrest she was apologetic to the police, the court heard.
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A mum left her children behind in an ant-infested house as she went out running drugs for the Hollywood line.
When Fiona Akello-Joseph, 27, was arrested on July 29, 2018, she told police officers that her two children - then aged two and five - were with adults and did not need to be looked after by the officers.
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Having been arrested at 2.30am and taken to Abingdon police station, she did not come clean about leaving her children alone in her Greater Leys terraced home until around 6am when she pressed the intercom buzzer and asked to speak to an officer.
She received 22 months’ imprisonment suspended for two years.
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A former sex worker blackmailed a customer – telling her she had a video of them having sex.
The £62,000 scam was exposed when Gemma Page’s victim, a married man who had to take out loans in order to pay-up, subjected her to a ‘brutal and violent’ attack in 2020 that led to his arrest.
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She was jailed for two years and eight months.
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MARCH
A haulage boss broke driving hours rules when his company was struggling as a result of coal sanctions imposed in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Francis Cleaver, 61, was running the business set up by his father when it was hit by a series of problems.
A contractor went bust in 2019 owing the company £1.4m. The pandemic then hit, although the firm kept on all its employees and took government loans.
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Then, after the invasion of Ukraine last year, the Lincolnshire power plant with whom the firm had a contract had to stop using Russian coal in favour of American imports.
Rather than the ash being taken from West Burton power station by train to Didcot, where it had been picked up by Cleaver’s drivers and taken for disposal in Thatcham, the use of different coal meant the ash waste had to be driven in special trailers all the way from the East Midlands to Berkshire.
He was handed a 15 months’ imprisonment suspended for a year and a half.
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A rapist whose victim feared she’d fallen pregnant from the assault swore from the dock as he was jailed for almost five years.
Anthony Shirley, 30, appeared to accuse his victim, who was left so traumatised by the assault that she took an overdose within hours of it happening, of ‘chatting s***’ and muttered ‘drop dead’ from behind the glass of the dock.
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Sentencing, Recorder Samantha Presland told Shirley that there was minimal credit for his plea of guilty on the morning of the trial – as the victim, who feared that her child was Shirley’s before it was established he was not the father, had been ‘basically accused of lying’.
“She is lying,” the remorseless rapist said from the dock. “F***ing bull****.”
He was jailed for four years and 10 months.
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An abuser left his former partner suicidal, she told a court.
The woman had to endure Anthony Sexton’s bullying and violent moods for months before he was arrested and remanded last year.
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Sexton, 34, was convicted earlier this year of controlling and coercive behaviour towards her, smashing up her flat, and leaving her friend with a broken nose and wandering around outside Aldi stripped to his pants. It was the 17th time the man’s nose had been broken, the court heard.
He was jailed for four years.
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A Cowley plant worker drove cocaine and ketamine worth thousands around the country in his leased BMW.
Paul Jones had been equipped with a heavily-encrypted ‘Encrochat’ mobile phone and given the username ‘MikeSkinner’, the name of a rapper with popular group The Streets who scored a hit with debut album 'A Grand Don't Come For Free'.
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Jones became the latest member of an Oxford-based organised crime group that was responsible for supplying ‘at least 150kgs’ of cocaine around the country in 2020 to go to prison for their involvement in the network.
He was jailed for five and a half years.
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A ‘spending addict’ who stole more than £12k from her step-grandmother was accused of ‘milking’ her victim.
Mum-of-three Emily Ellwood dipped into her elderly relative’s bank account over nine months between April and December 2019 – decimating the woman’s savings and meaning her house had to be sold to cover care home fees.
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Sentencing her to two years’ imprisonment suspended for two years at Oxford Crown Court on Monday, March 13, Recorder John Bate-Williams told 36-year-old Ellwood: “You dishonestly used account details initially given to you for authorised purposes to milk money from a bank account held by your step grandmother.”
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APRIL
A TikTok star was cleared of obstructing a police officer – when the constable failed to turn up at court.
Harrison Sullivan, 20, who has more than 900,000 followers on the social media site, was said to have got in the way of officers in New Inn Hall Street, central Oxford, on April 2.
The officers were attempting to arrest Sullivan’s friend, who could be seen on a video posted to the defendant’s YouTube account repeatedly flashing his buttocks at the police officers.
Sullivan had earlier been arrested on suspicion of drink driving, although was released after passing a breathalyser test, the video claimed.
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A married hospital cleaner pestered a patient whose number he’d obtained by snatching her phone and calling himself.
Gaspar Moreira, who has previous convictions for sexual assault, ignored the woman’s requests for him to stop – then began pleading with her not to go to report him to the police when he realised he might lose his job.
The 33-year-old had only begun the John Radcliffe Hospital cleaning job two weeks before he spotted his victim in a waiting area in December last year.
He was jailed for 12 weeks.
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A bible-clutching rapist who turned his victims’ childhoods into a ‘living hell’ was told they could never forgive him.
Wearing a lemon-yellow plastic rosary and holding a bound copy of the bible, Alala Kesahit, 31, wept as he heard the brutal impact of his sexual abuse on the two girls.
In a victim personal statement read to Oxford Crown Court by prosecutor David Lee, one of his two victims said: “You stole my virginity, you stole what could have been a memorable childhood that turned into a nightmare; a living hell.”
He was jailed for 20 years.
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A convicted sex offender was looking at ‘dog porn’ within weeks of being spared prison for sharing child sex abuse images.
Simon Jenkins, 62, received an 18 month jail sentence suspended for two years at Isleworth Crown Court in September 2021 for distributing indecent images of children and possession of extreme pornography.
But within barely a month he was searching Google for ‘bestiality images’.
He was handed a three year community order.
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A brooding ex-husband who threatened to ‘stab up’ his former wife before trying to kick in the front door has been jailed for four years.
Darren Phipps, 42, slashed a ‘six to seven inch’ kitchen knife through the gap in the partly-opened door, nicking his ex-wife’s wrist as she tried to shut the door.
The woman took her two young children and barricaded them all in an upstairs bedroom, using furniture to block the bedroom door.
He was jailed for four years.
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MAY
A flasher with a love heart tattooed beneath his right eye stared straight at a bus passenger as he performed a sex act on himself while he drove by in his van.
Aaron Duffy, 28, had already been given prison time for flashing supermarket staff by the time he committed the lewd act on the dual carriageway.
And at the time of his latest offence on May 9, he was subject to a two year suspended prison sentence for dealing cocaine.
He was jailed for 18 months.
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A machete wielder was said to have gone into a barbershop armed with the knife in revenge for having been chased earlier in the day.
Adil Taseem, 22, was filmed brandishing the blade in Trinder’s Barbershop in Church Lane, Banbury, at around 2.30pm on Saturday, May 27.
In mobile phone footage that had gone viral on social media within hours of the incident, Taseem could be seen smiling at the camera as he left the shop.
He was given a community order in July.
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A woman who put three children through a ‘living hell’ that saw them beaten, burned and locked in cupboards has been jailed for a decade.
Elsie Wheddon, 71, was in her 20s when she and then husband Stephen were responsible for the catalogue of abuse and vile neglect of the three children at their home in Oxfordshire.
As well as taking part in some of the physical violence meted out by her husband – who took his own life in February 2022 hours before he was due at court facing 60 separate sexual allegations – Elsie was said to have been aware of the sexual abuse that two girls suffered at Stephen’s hands.
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A jealous boyfriend who sent vile threats to his then son was accused of ‘stooping into the gutter’.
Ben Dixon, 25, was originally charged with coercive behaviour towards the woman and attacking her last year.
But prosecutors dropped the case part-way through the alleged victim’s evidence, after she felt unable to continue.
Before the trial, the Cholsey man had already admitted leaving abusive messages on his girlfriend’s phone, sent over a matter of days last September.
He was jailed for 22 months.
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A rosary-wearing paedophile kept his head bowed in shame as his victim’s mum described his sick offending against her daughter as ‘a mother’s worst nightmare’.
The woman broke down as she detailed the terrible impact of Oxfordshire man William Swandle’s vile offending on her daughter.
“This is a mother’s worst nightmare," said the woman.
He was jailed for eight years.
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JUNE
The teenager who quarreled with Kidlington electrician Alex Innes over a £100 debt before stabbing him in the heart has been convicted of murder.
Greg ‘Gino’ Muinami was not present in court on Friday afternoon to hear jurors find him guilty of murder and possession of a blade, having declined to come to Oxford Crown Court from prison.
The 19-year-old had denied involvement in the fatal stabbing of Mr Innes outside the Love Jericho cocktail bar in Walton Street in the early hours of November 13 last year.
But he failed to give any explanation for his actions either to the police, choosing to answer no comment when he was interviewed by detectives following his arrest, or to the jury.
He did not give evidence in his own defence and was largely absent from the dock when his co-defendant, Michael Oluyitan, was the only one of the stabbers to go into the witness box during the trial.
Munami was later jailed for life.
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A jealous teenager cut off his 17-year-old girlfriend’s hair in a vile act of petty rage.
Rio Samson’s ex said he knew the act of cutting off her hair would ‘destroy my confidence’.
It came at the end of a three-month long campaign of bullying domestic abuse by the then 18-year-old on his young partner in the summer and early autumn of 2021.
He was handed a two year jail sentence, suspended for two years.
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A convicted dangerous driver who bought an Audi A3 in celebration of completing his driving ban found he couldn’t afford the insurance – then got caught driving the new motor with cover.
Ironically for Brendon Shamu, he has now been given a fresh 15 month roads ban for what a judge at Oxford Crown Court this week branded his ‘very, very stupid error’.
The 25-year-old Sussex university student, who has paused his international relations and sociology course, was originally before the courts in 2021 for a police chase that started when an officer in an unmarked car tried to pull him over on Pegasus Road.
In that case, Shamu claimed that he had been stabbed several weeks before, been worried for his safety and panicked when the – uniformed – officer tapped on his window.
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The victim of a brutal attack by her ex-partner spoke of how being repeatedly kicked as she lay on the ground outside Didcot Parkway station had left her life in pieces.
Sending him down for 42 months at Oxford Crown Court on Monday, judge Recorder Samantha Presland told Nathan Poole that he had carried out an ‘abhorrent, prolonged attack’ on the mother of his children.
But the hearing descended into acrimony, as supporters for the defendant and victim exchanged insults across the public gallery.
One man shouted ‘you’re s***’ after 33-year-old Poole was told he would serve half the three-and-a-half year sentence behind bars.
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A man denied wearing nappies in the presence of girl, as he appeared before a judge to plead not guilty to sexually abusing two children a decade-and-a-half ago.
Christopher Jones, 42, faces allegations that he sexually assaulted two girls aged under-13 between July 2007 and August 2008.
He is accused of performing sex acts on one of the girls and engaging in sexual activity – including the alleged nappy wearing – in the presence of another.
Judge Maria Lamb fixed the trial, which is expected to last at least a week, to begin on July 1 next year.
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An Oxford college kitchen porter who molested two girls in the woods has been jailed for four years – as his victims told the Cowley man they just wanted him to accept he had done wrong.
Barry Walton, 61, who worked in the Hertford College kitchens, used a ‘thorny stick’ to sexually assault one of the girls, and sought to bribe her with sweets and money.
He later sexually assaulted the younger girl in Spindleberry Park, Blackbird Leys, telling her to sit on him.
In a victim impact statement read to Oxford Crown Court on Friday, June 16 by prosecutor Gabrielle McAvock, the older girl said: “Because of what he did we never got a normal childhood.”
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