A vengeful Harrogate man has been jailed today for stalking his ex-partner, breaking into her home and smashing her work van — while she was inside.
Colby Beattie, 22, waged a relentless stalking campaign against the young woman following the breakdown of their relationship, York Crown Court heard.
In September last year, about six months after their relationship ended, Beattie broke into her home on Albert Road, Harrogate, and started smashing items in her kitchen including kettles, plates and the oven door while she was upstairs.
Prosecutor Brooke Morrison said the victim called police who arrested Beattie. He was released on bail on the proviso that he didn’t contact the victim or go to her address.
However, about two weeks later she came downstairs to find him standing in her kitchen doorway. The terrified victim screamed and called police as Beattie fled from the property.
About a week later, on October 1, the victim noticed there were two flat tyres on her Citroen Berlingo works van. She suspected that Beattie had tampered with the tyres as she had only just recently had their pressure checked.
The following day, one of the tyres came off the vehicle and she noticed that some of the bolts were missing from the wheel.
Three days later, she noticed that a screw had been inserted into one of the tyres and another had been slashed.
On October 11, she received a message from Beattie while she was out of the house. Part of the message read: “Whose are the joggers?”
It was obvious to the victim that Beattie had been inside her home because the jogging bottoms belonged to a man with whom she was in a new relationship and had been left in her bedroom.
She called police out again and they searched her home to check if Beattie was still there. He wasn’t, but an hour after they left the victim received a series of phone calls from him.
Ms Morrison said:
“Later that day she left the house again and when she returned in her work van, she saw him come round the corner on a pushbike.
“He got off the pushbike and approached her van (while she was still inside), climbed onto the van and started kicking and stomping on the windscreen until it smashed.”
He then started “kicking and pulling” at the driver’s door and tried to open it. When it failed to open, he jumped on the roof and started stamping on the vehicle again.
The petrified victim called police and was “screaming down the phone for help” from inside the van, at which point Beattie jumped off the vehicle and rode off on his bike. Ms Morrison added:
“She stayed in the van for a period of time out of fear.
“When she got out, her garden gate was open and her dogs came running out.”
The victim knew this meant that Beattie must have been inside her home again. When she went inside the property, she found that the dinner she had left out had been tipped in the kitchen sink, her bank card and passport had been cut up and “left in pieces” on the kitchen island, her TV screen and iPad had been smashed up, and a packet of prescription pills and the contents of her washing machine and dryer had been emptied onto the floor. She also discovered that £240 had gone missing from a money box.
She received yet more phone calls during and after this horrifying discovery but didn’t answer them.
‘Only one sentence can be imposed’
Beattie, of Parliament Terrace, Harrogate, was charged with burglary, stalking and damaging the victim’s property. He admitted all three matters and appeared for sentence today.
The court was told that the victim hadn’t been able to work since the incident because of the damage to her van. The repair bill was as yet unknown.
At the time of the offences, Beattie was subject to a community order imposed in June last year for threatening to damage property.
Defence barrister Benjamin Bell said that Beattie “lost (everything) when the relationship went downhill” because the victim was his “first love”.
Judge Simon Hickey told Beattie:
“For this type of behaviour against this young woman there’s only one sentence that can be imposed and that’s immediate custody.”
He said the victim must have been “terrified” by Beattie’s behaviour which was aggravated by the fact that he was on bail and under a court order at the time of the offences.
Beattie was jailed for 17 months but will only serve half of that time behind bars before being released on prison licence.
Read more:
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Harrogate woman jailed for chasing supermarket staff with drug needle
A Harrogate woman who chased supermarket staff with a drug needle after they tried to stop her stealing alcohol has been jailed for 19 months.
Prolific shoplifter Julie Ruth Rutherford, 54, became aggressive after staff tried to stop her stealing two bottles of alcohol at the Asda store on Bower Road, York Crown Court heard.
Prosecutor Eleanor Guildford said that when staff members confronted Rutherford and asked her what was inside her bag, she hurled abuse at them and poured the contents of the bag onto the floor, which included needles.
Rutherford, who had bedevilled local supermarkets for years, picked up one of the needles and “began to sprint” after the store manager, shouting:
“I’ll give you a needle! I’ll stab you with it.”
Ms Guildford said the store manager, who was named in court, was caused a great deal of distress and anxiety. When he tried to block her path outside the store, Rutherford punched and threatened to stab him.
Ms Guildford said he had recognised Rutherford as she had stolen from the supermarket on “multiple” previous occasions.
As Rutherford tried to escape, she damaged two plant pots, added the prosecuting barrister.
She was arrested five days after the incident which occurred on the afternoon of November 24 and was captured on CCTV.
Rutherford initially denied the offences, claiming she had “no knowledge” of the incident because of her chronic alcohol addiction.
The store manager said the terrifying episode had had a profound impact on his mental health and his sleep, and he often had nightmares about the incident.
41 previous convictions
Rutherford, of Strawberry Dale, was charged with affray, criminal damage and theft. She admitted the offences which were in breach of a 12-month suspended prison sentence imposed in late October for shoplifting.
She had 41 previous convictions for 85 offences, more than half of which were thefts.
Ms Guildford said the shoplifting incident which occasioned the suspended sentence in October occurred in “very similar circumstances” to the incident at Asda four weeks later.
She said Rutherford had a “propensity to commit offences of the same nature” and use the same sort of “tools”, namely needles, to cause people fear of violence.
Read more:
- Harrogate paedophile jailed for 13 years for historic sex offences
- Harrogate heroin and cocaine dealer jailed for over three years
Defence barrister Gabrielle Wilkes said Rutherford was “highly embarrassed” about her behaviour and had wanted to be remanded in custody for her own good.
She said Rutherford had endured a traumatic adulthood exacerbated by the death of her sister four years ago and becoming homeless.
She said that Rutherford was a drug addict and alcoholic who was now seeking help for her problems.
Time she ‘learnt a lesson’
Judge Sean Morris told Rutherford:
“I accept you had a tough life, but lots of people have tough lives and they don’t behave like you. It doesn’t give you the right to terrorise people with needles.”
Mr Morris, the Recorder of York, said Rutherford had cost the courts and authorities thousands and thousands of pounds over the years by her inveterate thievery.
He said it was time she “learnt a lesson” and gave her an 18-month jail sentence for the affray, with one month consecutive for breaching the suspended sentence.
Rutherford will serve half of the total 19-month sentence behind bars before being released on prison licence.
Harrogate heroin and cocaine dealer jailed for over three yearsA heroin and crack-cocaine dealer from Harrogate has been jailed for over three years.
Scott Bradley, 36, was arrested after patrol officers in Harrogate town centre came across a group of suspicious-looking men, York Crown Court heard.
The group were “huddled” around Bradley in Bower Street in what appeared to be a drug deal, said prosecutor Jemima Stephenson.
Bradley appeared to discard a plastic bag into the hedgerow behind him. He was quickly arrested and searched.
Extra police units were called in after one of the men in the “huddle” walked up to police to try to distract them.
Police seized a tin of white powder from Bradley who claimed it was bicarbonate of soda. They also seized two mobile phones, one of which was “constantly ringing”, some tablets, two sets of weighing scales and £180 cash.
Police searched the vicinity and found a snap bag containing “multiple” wraps of white and brown powder which turned out to be heroin and cocaine.
Bradley refused to reveal his address so his home couldn’t be searched. He was released under investigation following the drug bust on January 2 last year.
In January this year, police were called out to an address in Harrogate on an unrelated matter and Bradley answered the door. He was arrested again and found to be in possession of heroin.
On October 13, he was arrested again following a police response to another “unconnected” matter at a property in Harrogate.
Bradley became “twitchy” during the police search and tried to put his hand in his pocket, whereupon officers found some white rocks which turned out to be crack cocaine in a zip-sealed bag. They also found three wraps containing illicit substances and some weighing scales.
Read more:
- Green Hammerton man jailed for historic sex offences in Harrogate
- Harrogate man jailed for role in ‘flooding’ town with heroin
The drugs found on Bradley during the searches following his initial arrest included heroin, cocaine, crack and cannabis.
Messages on his phones showed he had been dealing cocaine, crack and heroin between Christmas 2021 and his arrest in January last year.
He ultimately admitted three counts of possessing Class A drugs with intent to supply, possessing criminal cash, several counts of simple possession of Class A drugs and one count of possessing a Class B drug.
30 previous convictions
Bradley – formerly of Hargrove Road, Harrogate, but currently of no fixed address – appeared for sentence yesterday (Wednesday, December 20) after being remanded in custody.
The court heard he had 30 previous convictions for 60 offences including cannabis production. At the time of his latest drug offences, he was on a community order, imposed in January this year, for burglary.
Defence barrister Jade Bucklow said that Bradley had been using drugs for over 10 years, “progressing from cannabis and alcohol to heroin”.
She said he started dealing to pay off a “large” debt to his drug dealer after he lost his job.
Ms Bucklow said that his dealer had smashed the windows at his then family home and threatened to set the property ablaze if he didn’t pay off the debt.
Judge Sean Morris, the Recorder of York, told Bradley his offences were “pernicious” because drug-dealing “eats away at society” and led to so much associated crime and collateral damage for those who become addicted.
He added:
“You chose to deal drugs rather than obtain money by legitimate means and if you swim with sharks, you get bitten.”
Bradley was jailed for three-and-a-half years.
Pentagon officer cleared of seriously injuring Harrogate schoolboys
A US colonel has been cleared of causing serious injury by careless driving following a horrific road crash in which two Harrogate schoolboys were badly injured.
Benjamin Oakes, 46, was in a white Vauxhall Astra which pulled out of a junction at the end of the driveway outside Ashville College and collided with the back end of a Ford Ranger pick-up truck, York Magistrates’ Court heard.
The Ford Ranger, driven by Sam Goodall, had swerved in an attempt to avoid the Astra, which clipped the back of his vehicle.
It caused the truck to spin and career across the road, where it mounted a pavement on the opposite side of Yew Tree Lane into the path of two teenagers who were walking along the footpath.
The truck struck both boys and ploughed through a wall at the edge of the college grounds.
Prosecutor Louise Berry said that at least one of the boys, who were both 15 at the time, was “buried under the debris” and both were seriously included. One of them suffered a horrific leg injury after the truck went “three-quarters way through the wall”.
Months in hospital
Giving evidence, one of the boys, who can’t be named for legal reasons, said:
“We got hit through the wall. I think I got knocked out for a bit. We were in the bushes. I just heard (his friend) scream.”
The boy said the truck hit him and he went onto its bonnet before hitting the wall. He said a large piece of wall landed on his left leg.
The teenager, now 16, said he looked over to his friend who saw his own badly injured leg and started screaming and saying he was going to die.
The boys spent 18 weeks and 22 weeks in hospital respectively. One of them needed extensive operations following the collision at about 8.30am on February 2.
Ms Berry said it was the Crown’s case that Mr Oakes, of Tewit Well Avenue, Harrogate, had caused the accident because he hadn’t checked that the way was clear before pulling out of the junction.
She said Mr Oakes’ Astra had been “edging” out of the junction before pulling out completely into the path of the Ford Ranger.
Benjamin Oakes
Mr Oakes, chief of the space policy division for the US joint chiefs of staff at the Pentagon, was charged with two counts of causing serious injury by careless driving but denied the allegations.
Yesterday, following a two-day trial, district judge Adrian Lower found the US military chief not guilty of both charges.
Read more:
- Accused in Harrogate schoolboy crash didn’t check road was clear, court hears
- Accused in Harrogate schoolboy crash is US chief of space policy
A female motorist who witnessed the collision described Mr Oakes’ driving in the moments before the crash as “aggressive and inpatient”.
She said he appeared to be “in a rush to leave the junction” before the collision with the pick-up driven by Mr Goodall, who said that following the crash Mr Oakes told him: “I didn’t see you.”
She said she thought the Astra had pulled out “a bit too early…and that’s what caused him to hit the back of the truck”. She added:
“I felt like the truck just appeared out of nowhere in the opposite lane to me.”
She then looked to her right and saw the two schoolboys walking along the footpath. She said:
“The truck was in the wall, so I knew it had gone into (the boys).
“I thought at the time that the truck was going really quick. I got out of the car…and saw that the Astra was damaged as well. I think we were all in shock.”
‘No conclusive evidence’
Peter Minnikin, Mr Oakes’ lawyer, said that neither his client, the female motorist nor the injured boys had seen the truck as it approached the “blind” junction and suggested it could have been travelling too fast.
District judge Adrian Lower said he had “no doubt that this was a traumatic, extremely painful experience for (the two schoolboys)” but that he had to consider the case dispassionately.
He noted that it was “extremely difficult” for motorists to turn right at the “blind” junction, partly due to a pillar or old gatepost at the end of the driveway.
He said there was “no conclusive evidence” that the truck had been travelling too fast or above the speed limit.
Mr Lower, who noted that Mr Oakes had been driving in the UK without incident for four years, said there was every possibility that the truck wasn’t visible to any of the motorists or witnesses even after Mr Oakes had pulled out of the junction.
He said that for those reasons he couldn’t be satisfied that Mr Oakes’ driving was careless or fell below the standard of a competent driver.
Mr Lower found Mr Oakes not guilty on both counts and made an order for the defendant’s costs to be paid from public funds.
Accused in Harrogate schoolboy crash didn’t check road was clear, court hears
A highly decorated colonel in the US military has gone on trial accused of causing serious injury to two Harrogate schoolboys by careless driving.
Benjamin Oakes, 46, was in a white Vauxhall Astra which pulled out of a junction at the end of a driveway next to Ashville College in Harrogate and collided with the back end of a Ford Ranger pick-up truck, York Magistrates’ Court heard.
Prosecutor Louise Berry said that the Ford Ranger, driven by Sam Goodall, had swerved in an attempt to avoid the Astra.
But the Astra clipped the back of the truck which careered across the road and mounted a pavement on the opposite side of Yew Tree Lane into the path of two teenagers who were walking along the footpath.
The truck struck both boys, who can’t be named for legal reasons, and ploughed through a wall at the edge of the college grounds.
Ms Berry said that at least one of the boys was “buried under the debris” and both were left with serious injuries including a horrific leg injury.
The scene of the crash in February.
Ms Berry said it was the Crown’s case that Oakes, of Tewit Well Avenue, Harrogate, had caused the accident because he hadn’t checked that the way was clear before pulling out of the junction.
She said that Oakes’s Astra had been “edging” out of the junction before pulling out completely into the path of the Ford Ranger.
Witnesses said they saw the Astra “edging out” of the junction before “rolling back” and then pulling out again.
Oakes – who according to his Linked In profile was chief of the space policy division for the US joint chiefs of staff at the Pentagon – was charged with two counts of causing serious injury by careless driving.
He denied the allegations and appeared for trial today at the York court in front of district judge Adrian Lower.
‘Aggressive and inpatient’
Ms Berry said it was the Crown’s contention that Oakes had driven carelessly because he had failed to check if the road was “completely clear” before he pulled out.
A female motorist who witnessed the collision described Oakes’s driving in the moments before the crash as “aggressive and inpatient”.
She said he appeared to be “in a rush to leave the junction” before the collision with the pick-up truck driven by Mr Goodall, who said that following the crash Oakes told him: “I didn’t see you.”
Another witness said he saw the Astra pull out of the junction “too far” before “clipping” the back end of the Ford Ranger.
The onus is on the prosecution to prove that Oakes directly contributed to the subsequent collision with the teenagers by pulling out of the junction carelessly, giving the truck driver no chance to take sufficient evasive action to avoid contact with the Astra.
Oakes’s Linked In profile said he had held his current role, which involves directing space policy for the joint chiefs of staff at the Pentagon in Washington, for more than four years.
The joint chiefs of staff consist of the most senior leaders in the United States Department of Defense, who advise the president.
He was previously a political-military analyst in the space policy division and before that was commander of the operational support squadron in the US Airforce.
Hundreds of US military personnel are stationed at RAF Menwith Hill near Harrogate.
The trial continues.
Read more:
- Accused in Harrogate schoolboy crash is US chief of space policy
- Harrogate schoolboys crash: man appears in court
Green Hammerton man jailed for historic sex offences in Harrogate
A 62-year-old man has been jailed for two years for child-sex offences committed more than 40 years ago.
Sean Harland, from Green Hammerton, appeared for sentence at York Crown Court on Friday after a jury convicted him of two counts of gross indecency with a young girl following a trial in September.
Prosecutor Paul Newcombe said the sexual abuse occurred in the Harrogate area in the mid-to-late 1970s, when Harland was a teenager.
He said that Harland made the girl perform sexual acts on him on “multiple” occasions.
Harland told her that if she ever told anyone about what he had done, she wouldn’t be believed. Mr Newcombe.said:
“She believed the threats.
“(Harland) clearly knew from a young age that what he was doing was wrong.”
The victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, didn’t tell anyone about the abuse until the early 1990s when she told her psychologist following a mental breakdown.
Police launched an investigation after being contacted by one of the victim’s family members about six years ago.
The victim read out a statement in court outlining the impact Harland’s offences had on her.
She had suffered from anxiety, depression and “severe” panic attacks for which she had received professional help from her teenage years to adulthood. She added:
“I’m still having counselling sessions and expect to need them until the day I die.”
Defence barrister Alasdair Campbell said Harland had no previous convictions and had always been a working man.
He added that Harland also had serious mental health issues for which he was receiving therapy.
Judge Sean Morris, the Recorder of York, said that Harland’s offences had a “devastating” effect on the victim who had suffered “severe” psychological harm.
He said that despite Harland’s young age at the time, he would have still “known right from wrong” and that what he had done to the victim was a “disgrace”.
The judge said that the offences were so serious that only an immediate prison sentence could be justified.
He told Harland:
“The plea to suspend (the sentence) would have been more powerful if you had admitted (the offences), but you didn’t and you’re still in denial.”
Harland, of Meadow Vale, will serve half of the two-year sentence behind bars before being released on prison licence.
He was also made subject to a sexual-harm prevention order, which will run for an indefinite period.
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Brother of murdered Seb Mitchell issues knife plea to young people
The eldest brother of murdered Harrogate boy Seb Mitchell has urged young people to “think again” about carrying knives after the killer was sentenced today.
Dylan Cranfield, 17, plunged an eight-inch kitchen knife through Seb’s heart, causing a fatal loss of blood and cardiac arrest after an argument at a house party.
He received a life sentence at Leeds Crown Court today – but will be eligible for parole in a little over 10 years.
Seb’s family read out heart-rending victim-impact statements expressing their devastation at the loss of a “beautiful, kind soul” and their wish to see Cranfield jailed for “many years”, the Harrogate killer.
Jack Mitchell, Seb’s eldest brother, also warned other young people to “think again” about carrying knives. He said:
“No amount of justice will ever compensate for the loss of Seb.
“He was an utterly beautiful soul who filled all of our lives with laughter and treated everyone he met with love and kindness. The chasm in our lives from his loss will never be filled.
“I urge anybody listening to this that carries a knife or thinks it is acceptable to pick up a knife in anger to think again.
“All it takes is one knife. One moment. One stab. And suddenly you are a killer.
“Your life is over and you have destroyed so many lives.”
‘Every day is felt with sadness, tears and heartache’
Seb’s mother Sonya Mitchell said Cranfield had committed “the ultimate betrayal” by killing his friend, which had destroyed her family’s life.
She added:
“Seb was my baby, the youngest of our five boys. Seb was one of the good guys, the best. He loved his life.
“The day that Seb died was the day our lives and many other lives in the Harrogate community and beyond changed forever.”
“We received the devastating news that although the knife wound had been repaired in his heart, it was not enough to save his life. It was the day our family of seven were shattered and broken into a family of six.”
Seb Mitchell. Picture: Sam Mitchell.
She said her family were enduring a “life sentence of pain and misery that will never, ever leave us”, adding:
“Seb was a beautiful soul, a courteous, bright, funny, popular, talented and supportive son, brother, grandson, friend and cousin loved by so many people,” she added.
“It’s impossible to comprehend the needless, senseless and violent way such a wonderful young man died. He was ripped away from us all forever, leaving a Seb-shaped hole in our hearts.
“Since the dreadful incident in February, every day is felt with sadness, tears and a heartache (from) losing Seb in such a ruthless and barbaric way. He had such a bright future ahead of him.”
Ms Mitchell, who has been on high levels of medication since her son was murdered, added:
“Whatever sentence is given to Seb’s murderer will never be enough. Seb will still be dead.
“I will still be dreading going to bed every night and dreading waking up the following morning to the awful realisation that I will never, ever see my beautiful, happy, smiling boy again, never hear his laugh, never see him evolve from the loving, kind teenage boy into the brilliant young man we all know he would have been.”
Grandmother’s tribute to ‘dearly loved’ Seb
Seb’s grandmother Lynette Fellows said:
“It’s impossible for me to quantify the abject misery, pain and distress this has had on us all. The loss of a dearly loved child (and) grandchild in the most brutal and senseless of ways has caused a grief so profound no-one can imagine.
“Seb had so many friends and talents with so much to give in the future. He had such a zest for life. Sadly, this future has been cut short in the most cruel and senseless way.”
She said her beloved grandson was kind to people and animals alike and “those blue eyes…always sparkled with love and a sense of fun”.
Murder after row over mirror
The incident, which was witnessed by three other teenagers, occurred at Cranfield’s house on Claro Road, Harrogate, where the two boys became embroiled in a blazing row.
Seb, who was just a week away from his 18th birthday, died two days after being stabbed in the chest by his friend who was “heavily intoxicated”, said prosecutor Peter Moulson KC.
Dylan Cranfield
Cranfield, of Claro Road, was found guilty of murder following a nine-day trial in August after the jury decided he had used the knife with intent to cause grievous harm.
Judge Guy Kearl KC, the Recorder of Leeds, lifted reporting restrictions allowing the press to name Cranfield who had previously remained anonymous due to his age.
The jury heard how the incident was triggered by a smashed mirror after Harrogate Grammar School student Seb had pushed Cranfield into a door during an argument. Within seconds, the two boys were squaring up to each other, shouting and swearing, whereupon Cranfield grabbed a large knife from the kitchen block and pointed it towards Seb’s stomach.
“A minute or two” since the initial argument, Seb was laid out on a sofa with a chest wound and gasping for breath, his face going white.
Read more:
- Harrogate boy given life sentence for murder of Seb Mitchell
- Harrogate boy murder: ‘Killers should be named regardless of age’, says campaigner
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Three teenagers who witnessed the incident in the early hours of February 19 went to Seb’s aid and called police and an ambulance as he lay barely conscious on the settee.
Mr Moulson said that when police arrived, Seb was unresponsive and falling deeper into unconsciousness.
He was taken to Harrogate District Hospital by ambulance, but his condition was so critical he was transferred to Leeds General Infirmary where he underwent emergency surgery and was placed in a medically induced coma, but despite the best efforts of doctors he was certified dead two days later, having suffered “catastrophic” brain damage due to fatal blood loss which led to a lack of oxygen reaching the brain.
‘I’m going to wet you up’
Police launched a murder investigation and spoke to two girls and a teenage boy who were at the house that night where drinks had been consumed.
The three teenagers had tried to separate the two boys and calm Cranfield down, but he pushed one of the girls away before grabbing the knife and “pointing it at Seb”.
She said that Cranfield seemed “fixated with (Seb)” and told him: “I’m going to wet you up.”
The expression “wet you up” is London slang for a stabbing.
She said she heard Cranfield repeatedly tell Seb: “I’m gonna kill you.”
Cranfield told Seb:
“If you don’t pay me (for the smashed glass) I will kill you. Like, I will…stab you up and wet you up.”
The girl saw Seb and Cranfield “on the (kitchen) floor, with glass smashed around them”.
They ended up “face to face” as Cranfield pointed the knife towards Seb’s stomach. She tried to grab the knife from Cranfield, but he told her: “Don’t touch my fxxxxxx knife.”
Police at the scene on Claro Road.
The two boys were still shouting at each other as the fight spilled over into the living room, but then Seb fell silent and was laid out, grasping his chest which was oozing blood.
The girl called 999 and was told by Cranfield to tell the ambulance operator that Seb had fallen onto the knife on the floor and that it was an accident. The two other teenage witnesses went along with this because they thought Cranfield “could kill them” too.
‘This wasn’t meant to happen’
When police and an ambulance crew arrived just after midnight, Cranfield told them:
“It was me. I was scared. Really sorry. This wasn’t meant to happen.”
The court heard that earlier in the evening, Seb, Cranfield and others had been drinking vodka. They carried on drinking at Seb’s grandparents’ house while they were away for the weekend.
Mr Moulson said that following Cranfield’s arrest, police also found a lock knife at the scene which was not used or produced during the incident, but he was charged with a separate offence of possessing a blade.
Seb, a black belt in karate who also played football, was put on life support following the stabbing but died later surrounded by his family.
Mohammed Nawaz KC, for Cranfield, said there was “no doubt” that drink had played a part in his client’s behaviour on the fateful night.
He said that while there was “love and guidance” in Cranfield’s childhood, a “degree of instability” had informed his early life and “that may have impacted on his…life choices that led him to the position that he is in”.
Judge Kearl KC said that Cranfield’s alcohol-fuelled, “spontaneous” act of violence had caused a lifetime of trauma for Seb’s family.
He imposed a life sentence on Cranfield with a minimum term of 11 years, which the teenager must serve behind bars before becoming eligible for parole, less the nine months he had already spent on remand.
RAF Menwith Hill terror plot accused experimented with firework gunpowder, trial hears
A “lone-wolf terrorist” who plotted to blow up a hospital and a RAF base near Harrogate had been experimenting with firework gunpowder and fertiliser inside his garage, a jury was told.
Mohammad Farooq, 28, a clinical support worker, planned to carry out an Islamist terror attack with a homemade bomb at RAF Menwith Hill and St James’s Hospital in Leeds but was stopped in his tracks by hero patient Nathan Newby, Sheffield Crown Court heard.
A subsequent police search of Farooq’s home in Leeds revealed a plethora of items which the prosecution claims were linked to his alleged plot to blow up the US spy and radar base near Harrogate and the hospital where he worked.
Among the items were a gun holster, a meat cleaver, a toiletries bag containing blank-firing ammunition and 250g of saltpetre, or Potassium Nitrate, which could be used as a rocket propellant or gunpowder.
Farooq, who denies plotting a terrorist attack at the two sites, admitted that “on a few occasions” he had taken the gun holster to work with him at the hospital.
In a transcript of one of his police interviews read out in court yesterday, he was asked why there appeared to be “screws and things” in the firework powder, to which he replied: “It was for the garage really.”
He said he had stripped the fireworks and placed the powder into plastic tubs which he then “poured into the bomb”.
He claimed he kept the meat cleaver under his bed to “make me feel more safe (sic), so I slept more peacefully” because he was “paranoid” and having nightmares.
When asked what the 250g of Potassium Nitrate were doing at his home, Farooq claimed it was used as a fertiliser for a vegetable plot behind his garage as it was “supposed to be good for the soil”, and for “curing meat”.
Read more:
- ‘Lone wolf terrorist’ plotted to blow up RAF Menwith Hill, trial hears
- Harrogate air base a ‘designated Islamic State target’, terrorism trial hears
Farooq admitted he had been searching for “bomb manuals” on internet forums run by extremist Jihadi groups such as Al Qaeda but had not been looking for advice on how to carry out a terrorist attack.
Police seized documents such as ‘Safety and Security Guidelines for Lone Wolf Mujahideen and Small Cells” that he had downloaded from such forums.
Other documents downloaded by Farooq included the Anarchist Cookbook and the Improvised Munition Handbook 1969 Department of the Army, which, despite chapters on how to manufacture explosives, grenades, ammunition, mortars, incendiary devices and detonators, Farooq claimed “didn’t suit me at all”.
When asked if he had “any desire to be part of Al Qaeda” and carry out “Lone Wolf” attacks, he replied: “No, definitely not.”
He said he was simply looking for a manual “to make a realistic-looking bomb” and wasn’t (on the Jihadi forums) to look at anything extremist.”
He claimed he was simply trying to “get back” at his colleagues, specifically nurses, at the hospital against whom he had a grudge because he felt he had been “humiliated” by them, but “not to hurt them in any way, it was just to scare them”.
Other documents downloaded by Farooq included ‘How to make Semtex and other explosives, IEDs’, but he claimed that “wasn’t what I wanted”.
It’s alleged that Farooq’s initial plan was to target the US spy base near Harrogate, but he also planned to blow up part of the hospital and go on a terrorist spree with a firearm, a homemade bomb and a kitchen knife, with the aim of “killing as many people as possible”.
Prosecutor Jonathan Sandiford KC added:
“By January 2023, we say that the defendant had a become self-radicalised lone-wolf terrorist who had made preparations to commit a murderous terrorist attack in Yorkshire.”
At about 5am on January 20, Farooq was arrested outside the Gledhow Wing of St James’s Hospital.
Mr Sandiford said:
“The defendant was in possession of a viable improvised explosive device assembled from a pressure cooker and containing 9.9 kilos of low explosive.
“He had with him…two knives, black tape and a blank-firing imitation firearm. The crown’s case is that he had gone to that hospital to commit a terrorist attack (and) seek his own martyrdom by detonating the explosive device and using bladed weapons to kill as many people as possible.”
Farooq sent a bomb threat from inside his car in the hospital car park, but it only reached an off-duty nurse who didn’t see it until over an hour later. He had intended to cause an evacuation while he waited outside to detonate the bomb and then “attack any survivors with the bladed weapons”.
However, because the bomb threat wasn’t seen for over an hour, the evacuation didn’t initially occur, and when it eventually did it was only a “part-evacuation”, with people being moved within the hospital, not to the car park where Farooq had been waiting.
Mr Sandiford said:
“When the evacuation happened, the defendant drove away.”
He returned to St James’s a short time later with a new plan of attack which was to carry the weapons including the homemade bomb into Costa Coffee inside the hospital wing, wait for a change of shift so that it would be full of nurses, “then detonate it, killing as many of them as possible”.
However, “luck intervened again” when patient Mr Newby, who was having a cigarette outside the entrance, bumped into Farooq and “noticed that something appeared to be amiss with the defendant”.
He persuaded Farooq to follow him away from the main hospital buildings to a bench where he “succeeded in talking him down” and called police, who turned up to arrest the alleged would-be terrorist.
Menwith Hill was ‘Plan A’
Using cell-site technology, police discovered that Farooq had made at least two visits to RAF Menwith Hill between January 10 and the day of his arrest on January 20. He had chosen the US spy base “because it was believed that the base had had been used to co-ordinate drone strikes against terrorists in Syria and Iraq”.
The RAF base had been his “Plan A” of attack, but when this didn’t come off, Farooq targeted the hospital in Leeds because it was seen as a “softer” target.
Farooq later admitted that he had the bomb with him when he went to the air base but claimed he had just gone there “for a drive”.
He had also “obtained instructions for the preparation and manufacture…of five deadly toxins as nerve agents”, namely Ricin, Sarin, VX, Tabun and Tetrodoxin.
Farooq, of Hetton Road, Roundhay, has already admitted possessing an explosive substance in suspicious circumstances, possessing an improvised explosive device and pyrotechnic fuses.
He has also pleaded guilty to possessing a document likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism and having an imitation firearm with criminal intent, namely a Gediz 9mm PAK semi-automatic pistol, and possession of the same imitation firearm with intent to cause fear of violence.
The trial continues.