JAILED THIS WEEK: Those jailed in Bradford in New Year week

Thomas Finnegan, 29, had also taken cocaine when his Mercedes Vito van smashed into a Nissan Juke being driven by Mark Gregson shortly before 10pm on January 24 last year.

Mr Gregson, 52, and his partner Claire Lucas, 43, were pronounced dead at the scene.

Finnegan’s girlfriend, Lucille Hammond, who was the front seat passenger in the van, suffered a fractured spine.

Finnegan, of Park Lane, North Newington, near Banbury, Oxfordshire, pleaded guilty to two counts of causing death by dangerous driving, one offence of causing serious injury by dangerous driving, driving while under the influence of drugs and driving with excess alcohol.

Prosecutor Michael Smith said Finnegan was driving home after drinking and taking drugs at The Cross Keys at East Marton.

Mr Gregson, who worked for Arla Foods at Settle, and Ms Lucas, headteacher at Bradley Nursery School in Nelson, were returning to their home near Kelbrook after a shopping trip.

The court heard that the happy and popular couple had been together for around four years and had two children each from previous relationships.

Mr Smith said that Finnegan, who sustained only minor injuries in the crash, was almost twice the legal drink-drive limit and had cocaine and cannabis in his blood.

He failed to negotiate a left hand bend at Broughton and crashed head-on into the Nissan Juke which was being driven on the correct side of the road. The van ended up “entirely” in the wrong lane.

CCTV from The Cross Keys showed Finnegan arriving at 5pm and driving off four and a half hours later.

He told the police he drank three pints of lager at the pub and took two to three grams of cocaine.

An eye witness to the crash spoke of “an explosion” at the point of impact.

Victim impact statements from the families of Mr Gregson and Ms Lucas spoke of the couple’s happiness together and closeness to their loved ones.

Four children had lost a parent and would suffer the heartbreak for the rest of their lives.

James Littlehales, Finnegan’s barrister, said it was a tragic case and his client accepted responsibility for his actions that day.

He apologised to the families and was deeply remorseful. His partner had also been seriously injured.

Finnegan had seen service in the Royal Navy and had owned his own expanding business at the time of the crash.

He was of positive good character except for an offence of driving without insurance.

The Recorder of Bradford, Judge Richard Mansell QC, said Mr Gregson and Ms Lucas were a happy couple whose lives were cruelly cut short.

Mr Gregson had absolutely no chance of avoiding the collision. Finnegan ploughed into his vehicle head-on devastating the lives of both families.

“Unimaginable grief” was caused and the lives of four children were torn apart.

Judge Mansell banned Finnegan from driving for nine years and four months and until he takes an extended retest.

He offered his deepest condolences to the families of Mr Gregson and Ms Lucas who were present in court.

A DRINK and drug fuelled man who shouted “burn bitch” after setting fire to a woman’s flat was jailed for a total of nine and a half years.

Waseem Nawaz blocked the exit with a blazing wheelie bin and taunted his vulnerable victim in the street, smiling and making abusive gestures as she breathed in thick smoke.

Nawaz, 34, of Granville Street, Keighley, pleaded guilty to arson with intent to endanger life at the housing association property in Mornington Street, Keighley, in the early hours of December 1, 2019.

He was jailed for eight and a half years with 12 months to run consecutively for an assault occasioning actual bodily harm in the centre of Keighley on July 30, 2017.

Prosecutor Camille Morland said the arson victim lost everything in the blaze. Her dog, which was blinded and suffered burned paws, had since died.

The woman, who had a number of serious health problems, was a friend of Nawaz and had allowed him to stay at her flat for a couple of days.

But by December 1, he was drinking to excess and taking drugs and she told him to leave. He was intoxicated and argumentative and 45 minutes after he had gone she heard a loud bang and the fire alarm went off.

Nawaz had pushed a wheelie bin against the flat door and set it alight in a revenge attack after he was ordered out.

The blaze spread to the front door and the guttering, sending thick smoke into the building.

The woman, who was at home with her carer, had difficulty breathing that was made worse by her illnesses.

When she opened a window, she saw Nawaz in the street taunting her. He shouted “burn bitch,” smiled and made abusive gestures.

Firefighters put out the blaze that had spread to the unoccupied flat below making both uninhabitable.

Nawaz was arrested from the attic at his home shortly afterwards. He made no comment to the police and denied the offence, only pleading guilty part-way through his trial.

The woman was already on medication for anxiety. She had lost her dog and was living on a friend’s sofa, Miss Morland said.

Her neighbour also had to move out and he had lost almost all his possessions.

The exact cost of the damage was not known but it was estimated at £15,000.

Nawaz had 23 previous convictions for 39 offences, including supplying Class A drugs, assault, battery, criminal damage and being drunk and disorderly.

His barrister, Giles Bridge, conceded that Nawaz was under the influence of alcohol and drugs at the time but he was now on a drug free wing at Leeds Prison.

His psychiatrist had found no evidence that he had a fascination with fire and this was his first offence of serious violence.

Judge Andrew Hatton said the arson was a revenge attack while Nawaz was under the influence of alcohol and drugs.

His victim had since lost her faithful dog after it was left badly injured by the blaze. She would never get over the shock and terror of that night.

A MAN was jailed for 20 months for urinating on his partner and repeatedly punching her after drinking and taking drugs on St Valentine’s Day.

Luke Longstaff left the woman bruised and bleeding in the attack at her home in the early hours of February 15 last year.

Longstaff, 28, who had been remanded in Leeds Prison since April, pleaded guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm and criminal damage to a radiator.

A further charge that he unlawfully and maliciously administered a poison or other destructive or noxious thing, namely urine, with intent to injure, aggrieve or annoy was dropped by the prosecution because it was part of the assault.

Prosecutor Andrew Semple said that Longstaff and the woman met on a dating website. At first they were happy together but his drinking and drug taking caused problems between them.

On the evening of St Valentine’s Day they had both been drinking and they began arguing. Longstaff, who had taken cannabis, called the woman insulting names and then urinated on her as she sat on the floor.

He then dragged her along as she clung to the radiator, pulling it off the wall.

Longstaff pushed her into a clothes rail, punched her twice in the face and shoved her to the floor before leaving the house.

The woman suffered a bruised and swollen face and bruising and grazing injuries to her arms and legs, Mr Semple said.

An ambulance was called but she did not need to go to hospital.

Water leaked from the radiator and caused flooding damage to her home, the court was told.

Longstaff was bailed following the attack but remanded into custody in April after returning to the woman’s home in breach of the conditions.

Mr Semple said that at first he tried to blame her for the violence, saying she had hit him, although the police had found her injured at the scene.

Abdul Shakoor said in mitigation that Longstaff had now served the equivalent of a 16 month prison sentence on remand.

Although urinating on the woman was “gratuitous degradation” she was not physically injured by that.

Longstaff, who worked at a garage, had never assaulted her before and he accepted that the relationship was over.

Judge Andrew Hatton said it was a sustained assault in the woman’s own home in which she had been subjected to “appalling degradation.”

A FORMER soldier who broke into a woman’s home and held a knife to her throat was jailed for three years.

Alan Johnson pleaded guilty to two offences of common assault on his former partner and falsely imprisoning her when he was sentenced on a video link to Hull Prison.

Johnson, 31, of The Thimbles, Rochdale, Greater Manchester, was in a relationship with the woman but became paranoid after drinking alcohol, prosecutor Chloe Hudson said.

He pinned her against a wall and bruised her leg, and then slapped her across the face in a separate incident.

On March 28, he broke into her home in the Halifax area at night and armed himself with a steak knife from the kitchen.

He held the weapon to her throat and had to be tasered by the police.

Johnson had previous convictions for assault, battery, threatening behaviour and harass-ment.

His barrister, Abigail Langford, said he had been in prison on remand since the knife of-fence.

He had been depressed and “in a dark place” at the time.

He was ex-army and had served in Iraq before working in the construction industry.

Judge Andrew Hatton jailed Johnson for 30 months for false imprisonment with six months to run consecutively for the two offences of common assault.

A MAN who was paid to travel from Italy to Keighley to tend a large cannabis farm was jailed for two years.

Istvan-Szilard Kabai was caught at the property after windows were smashed by burglars wanting to steal the crop of 128 plants.

Kabai, 30, a Romanian national, had been promised 25 per cent of the value of the cannabis he was looking after at a house in Devonshire Street, Keighley.

He was arrested at the scene on December 16 when police busted the factory following an alert that it was being burgled.

Prosecutor Paul Canfield said two windows had been broken at the house and attempts made to crowbar the barricaded rear door.

When the police forced entry they found that two bedrooms and the attic were being used to grow the cannabis. There were heaters, timers and fans and the electricity meter had been bypassed.

There were 85 plants in the bedrooms and a further 43 smaller plants in the attic.

Kabai and another man were living at the address, sleeping on camp beds in the living room.

Kabai told the police he was offered the chance to earn a large amount of money in the United Kingdom.

His flight into the country was paid for and he was collected at the airport and brought to the house.

Kabai had no previous convictions for any offences in this country or elsewhere, Mr Canfield said.

His barrister, Peter Hampton, said the factory had already been set up and the meter bypassed when he arrived.

Kabai had been immediately honest with the police and not sought to run the “fashionable” defence that he had been trafficked.

“He was a very small cog in a large criminal enterprise operating in Bradford and further afield in the UK,” Mr Hampton said.

Those in charge of the operation took advantage of people’s foolishness or exploited them, or both.

“He made the foolish decision to obtain what he thought was easy money while in dire financial circumstances in Italy,” Mr Hampton told the court. “The criminal enterprise will chew him up and spit him out the other side.”

Judge Andrew Hatton said Kabai went into the criminality for financial gain, expecting 25 per cent of the value of the crop.

“I rather suspect you would have been disappointed when it came to the time for payment,” he said.

Kabai will be automatically deported when he has served his sentence.

A “VIOLENT coward” was jailed for 25 months for throwing a bottle into a barmaid’s face.

Shaun Hall forcibly hurled the beer bottle at the young woman when she was working in Maggie’s bar in Commercial Street, Halifax, in the early hours of December 8, 2019.

Hall, 30, of Shirley Road, Gomersal, Cleckheaton, pleaded guilty to unlawful wounding.

Prosecutor Timothy Jacobs said Hall seized the bottle after a woman in his group said: “Are you going to do something?” when the victim threw a glass of water over her because she had been screaming and issuing threats.

The barmaid sustained a laceration to her forehead that had left her permanently scarred.

Hall ran off and made no comment when he was interviewed by the police.

The woman was treated in Calderdale Royal Infirmary where shards of glass were removed from her wound and it was sutured.

She told the court the incident had left her traumatised. She suffered sleepless night and was left facially disfigured.

Hall had 14 previous convictions for 16 offences, including possession of a bladed article and affray.

His lawyer, Saf Salam, said it was a single blow and he was very remorseful. He was in a relationship and had a young child.

He worked as a scrap metal collector and wanted to pay compensation.

Judge Andrew Hatton told Hall: “You are a violent man and a coward.”

He ordered him to pay the woman £2,000 compensation.