FOUR men were locked up for a total of almost 25 years for their roles in a major drugs ring that bought in kilos of cocaine to sell on the streets of Bradford and district.
Gareth Hughes, 41, of Broadstone Way, Holme Wood, Bradford, who played a leading role in two similar drugs conspiracies, was imprisoned for 13 years.
Judge Colin Burn, sentencing him at Bradford Crown Court, told Hughes it was an aggravating feature that he had recruited his teenage son to the second conspiracy.
The judge said that Hughes set up another conspiracy last year to replace the one that had ‘gone south’ after a police investigation. He had showed a persistence over 18 months to deal the drug.
Hughes’ son, Billy Hughes-Whiteley, 19, also of Broadstone Way, was sent to a young offender institution for four years and three months.
Judge Burn said he played an important role in the 2022 conspiracy by assisting his father. But it was a mitigating feature that as an 18-year-old he was involved by his father in the operation.
He was also ‘suggestable in the psychological sense,’ the court heard.
Andrew Fry, 36, of Andover Green, Holme Wood, was jailed for three years and four months.
He began taking drugs when he was depressed and he may be able to rehabilitate himself going forward, the judge said.
He was ‘very busily dealing’ but he may not have had the full picture. It was however a significant role that he went into with ‘his eyes open.’ Krishan Patel, 25, of Grovelands, Bolton, Bradford, a semi-professional footballer, was imprisoned for four years.
Judge Burn said there was no real explanation for his involvement in the drug running.
He drove a number of vehicles for the operation during a seven-week period.
Martyn Hobson, 32, of Ayton Close, Barkerend, Bradford, was spared an immediate prison sentence after Judge Burn said his was a lesser role.
He did what he was told and there was evidence to suggest that his mental health issues had got him into using drugs. He became addicted and that had tied him into the conspiracy by suppling cocaine.
Hobson was sentenced to two years imprisonment, suspended for two years, with 30 rehabilitation activity requirement days.
All the men were sentenced for conspiring to supply cocaine except for Hobson who admitted supplying the Class A drug.
Judge Burn said the four main men were involved in a conspiracy to supply cocaine in Bradford between April and August last year.
Hughes had set it up as a replacement for a previous conspiracy that he was also sentenced for.
It was ‘a depressingly familiar situation’ in which Hughes bought in kilos of cocaine and recruited his son aged 18 to organise quite a lot of the logistics, the judge stated.
Hughes-Whiteley dealt with calls from users and dispatched the mobile dealers.
The large amounts of cocaine were under the ultimate control of Hughes, with a degree of control exercised by his son.
The other three men were regular mobile dealers and Fry and Hobson allowed the operation to use their bank accounts for a time until the ring switched to cash only.
Patel was insured to drive a Nissan Micra by Hughes-Whiteley when he joined the business and was provided with a phone.
Yesterday, prosecutor Peter Hampton said that 9.88 kilos of drugs were handled during the operation.
Cocaine was supplied to Bradford and surrounding areas on a ‘ring and bring’ basis with payment in cash or by bank transfer.
Money was recovered from Hughes’ home and he also had £7,000 worth of designer clothing.
After he was arrested and bailed, he was ‘undeterred’ and set up a second conspiracy to supply cocaine in Bradford. This time he had more than £6,000 in cash in his possession when he was arrested.
Mr Hampton said he played a leading role with the expectation of considerable financial gain.
Hughes-Whiteley was deputised by his father and also must have had the expectation of financial gain.
Fry and Hobson were street dealers working shifts for the operation. Patel joined the drugs ring later on, also as a street dealer.
DAVID JOWETT
A TATTOO artist was jailed for 20 months after he squeezed a former partner’s throat in a prolonged attack that left her ‘emotionally broken.’ David Jowett damaged a child’s swing before turning up at the woman’s house in the early hours, refusing to leave and then assaulting her, Bradford Crown Court heard.
Jowett, 40, of Whinney Hill Park, Brighouse, was sentenced on a video link to HMP Leeds after pleading guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm, assaulting an emergency worker and criminal damage.
Prosecutor Philip Adams said that Jowett was upset when the woman ended the relationship.
He arrived at her home at 2am on November 19 and left a letter that was partly abusive.
He damaged a child’s garden swing but then replaced it.
The following day, he turned up at 2am and repeatedly rang the doorbell until she let him in. There was an argument and she asked him to leave.
Mr Adams said she threw Jowett’s phone into the garden in an attempt to get rid of him and tried to push him out of the door.
He then pushed her over, put his hands round her neck and squeezed her throat with both hands. She was struggling to breathe and thought she would be killed, the court was told.
She managed to leave the address and call the police.
She sustained scratches and carpet burns, pain in her neck and an abrasion to her jaw line.
Jowett then texted her to apologise, Mr Adams said.
When the police went to his home, he was obstructive. He was incapacitated with PAVA spray but continued to struggle. As he was being pushed out of the flat, he spat in an officer’s face.
Mr Adams said that Jowett had a conviction for assault from 2007.
The woman said the assault had left her anxious and in pain. She had moved house in case Jowett went back there after his release from prison.
She had installed security cameras at her new address and was ‘emotionally broken,’ she stated.
Frances Pencheon said in mitigation that it was ‘a toxic relationship’ and things got out of hand after it came to a very unhappy end. Jowett wanted to draw a line under it and move on.
He had been remanded in custody since December and had suffered the loss of his mother in that time. He was a hardworking man with offer of employment as a landscape gardener.
Judge Sophie McKone said Jowett reacted violently when the woman ended their short relationship.
The assault had exacerbated her health condition and she had felt compelled to leave her home.
His biggest mitigation was that he had lost his mother while on remand. He must have felt helpless about the bereavement while in prison, Judge McKone said.
Jowett was jailed for 19 months for attacking the woman and one month to run consecutively for assaulting the police officer.
Judge McKone made a five-year restraining order banning him from having any contact with the complainant.
MICHAEL THWAITES
A DRUNKEN man who downed four cans of strong cider in quick succession before burning out a car on a Bradford street was jailed for two and a half years.
Michael Thwaites, 41, used petrol he had stolen from a filling station on Leeds Road to set fire to the £2,500 Kia Sportage on March 26.
It was the culmination of what Judge Colin Burn called ‘a spate of offending’ committed by homeless alcoholic Thwaites starting last October.
Bradford Crown Court heard that he had 69 convictions for 145 offences, including criminal damage, theft, being drunk and disorderly, common assault, assaulting an emergency worker, racially aggravated public order, and multiple offences of begging and shoplifting.
Prosecutor Abdul Shakoor said Thwaites had admitted arson, theft, assaulting two paramedics and a police officer, criminal damage and threatening behaviour in the latest raft of offending.
On October 30 last year, he assaulted two paramedics in the back of an ambulance parked on Bingley Road in Bradford.
He was put into a mask for spitting and strapped on to a stretcher when he grabbed the scissors from one of them. The paramedic wrestled them back and Thwaites hurled insults and grabbed the second man by the collar as he was pushed from the vehicle.
Thwaites then punched at the locked back doors of the ambulance and spat in the police vehicle transporting him after he was arrested meaning it had to be deep-cleaned.
In December, he swore at police officers called out because he again appeared to be unconscious. He smelt of intoxicants and threatened to stick scissors into the neck of an officer.
Thwaites went to headbutt him and was taken to the ground causing the officer to sustain a cut hand and a painful shoulder.
He told officers he was a homeless alcoholic and wanted to go to prison because he liked it.
In February, he threatened to kill a young mother who approached him when he was sleeping on pallets near her garden on Wakefield Road. He was obstructive when the police arrived.
Ella Embleton said in mitigation that Thwaites expected to go to prison. He had been remanded in HMP Leeds since March 28 and was making good use of his time there.
He had pleaded guilty to all the offences and not wasted the court’s time.
The arson wasn’t planned. He had a disagreement with the car’s owner and downed four cans of strong cider in quick succession. Then it was ‘just a blur.’ He is very embarrassed and ashamed about it, Miss Embleton said.
Thwaites had been in the grip of an alcohol addiction for some time. Now sober, he was going to make positive changes to his life on his release.
He offered his sincere apologies to the victims of his crimes.
Judge Burn said Thwaites had a very lengthy record and the probation service had concluded that his offending wasn’t manageable in the community.
He was jailed for a total of 30 months for all the offences.
ALEXANDER CHAPLIN
A HOODED armed robber who threatened two hair stylists with a large kitchen knife while forcing them to hand over £102 was jailed for two and a half years.
Heroin addict Alexander Chaplin demanded more money from the frightened young women when they gave him cash from the till and the float, Bradford Crown Court heard.
Chaplin, 33, described as being of no fixed address in Bradford, was sentenced on a video link to HMP Hull following his arrest after he was circulated as wanted.
Philip Adams, prosecuting, said he was wearing a distinctive camouflage jacket and had his hood up to conceal his face when he entered the salon in the Huddersfield area on the morning of August 20 last year.
He had a large kitchen knife and demanded money.
One of the women hid a wallet with £80 in it under the till. She gave him £12 from the till and her colleague handed over cash from the float.
Mr Adams said Chaplin was unhappy with the amount and said they must have more money in their purses. He was then given the £80 that had been concealed.
Chaplin left the salon after telling the women to wait five minutes before calling the police.
One of the victims was pregnant and the second said afterwards that she felt sick.
A PCSO recognised Chaplin on security footage. He was circulated as being wanted and arrested on January 11.
He made no comment when questioned by the police but went on to plead guilty to robbery and possession of a bladed article.
Chaplin’s barrister, Christopher Dunn, said he was apologising to the women throughout the robbery.
He was hitherto a decent person who had never been in trouble before.
Chaplin was in the grip of a heroin addiction and now working hard to overcome it.
The court could have confidence that he would stay clear of drugs in the future, Mr Dunn said.
There were very substantial grounds to believe he was capable of rehabilitation.
Recorder Paul Reid said it was a sad tale all-too frequently encountered in the courts. Chaplin had fallen victim to the pernicious effect of Class A drugs and committed the offences while desperate for a fix.
He had a large knife and although he was saying sorry throughout, the women didn’t know if he might use it.
Recorder Reid said that those who commit knifepoint robbery, even while apologising, must be penalised by a prison sentence.
ANITA BURKEVICA
A WOMAN stole £90,000 from a church and used part of it to buy a property in her homeland.
Anita Burkevica, 48, of Regency Court, Bradford, was sentenced at Bradford Crown Court to 18 months behind bars for fraud by abuse of position.
She had pleaded guilty at Bradford and Keighley Magistrates’ Court on June 28.
The court that heard Burkevica was Chairperson and Treasurer for the Latvian Lutheran Church in Bradford for five years when she abused that position of ‘trust and responsibility.’ Judge Ahmed Nadim said: “Between the period of August 2018 and May 2019 you abused that position by stealing from the church monies of the order of £90,000.”
This was done through two transactions, according to the prosecution.
The first came after the church sold a property in Leeds for £140,000 to raise funds for running the congregation and the pastor noticed in early 2019 that £50,000 had gone missing.
He asked Burkevica about this and she said the money had been invested in bonds for a better rate of interest.
Mr David Ward, for the prosecution, said: “So far, so good – it seems at the time it was accepted.”
But then a further £40,000 went missing a few months later and Burkevica admitted to taking the money and claimed she would pay it back when an insurance claim relating to a man she had struck up a relationship with was paid.
The court heard the man’s wife had died in a ‘horrific crash’ and this was the subject of the insurance claim.
Judge Nadim said: “You decided to support him and his children in their lifestyles.
“You paid for a property in your own name in your country of origin, Latvia, with the purchase having been made from money you had taken, or some of the money you had taken, from the church.”
The prosecution said this property cost €60,000.
The court heard that when Burkevica’s promised repayment was not forthcoming she was reported to police.
She paid £150 back in July 2019, which her defence lawyer Ella Embleton said was ‘a drop in the ocean’ but was all she could give at the time.
Miss Embleton added that Burkevica would be able to pay back £1,000 each month moving forward, now she is earning between £2,000 and £2,500 working on her family’s farm in Latvia.
Burkevica had no previous convictions.
Miss Embleton said Burkevica took her 76-year-old mother to and from various appointments, due to her living in a small village without a pharmacy or doctors’ surgery, and an immediate custodial sentence would have a detrimental impact.
Burkevica had seven children – three blood relatives and four from the man she struck up a relationship with.
She was very close to the man’s 16-year-old daughter who had significant mental health issues due to her mother dying in a crash, the court heard.
Miss Embleton said: “She’s already lost one mother in a horrific car crash, she’d built up a mother-daughter relationship and she would effectively lose a second mother.”
But Judge Nadim said the offence was far too serious to not impose an immediate custodial sentence.
A timetable was set for a Proceeds of Crime Act application that will be heard on December 4.
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