Ripon Conservatives president acquitted of causing death by careless driving

A hotel boss and Tory constituency president has been found not guilty of causing the death of a grandmother by careless driving.

Nicholas Ayrton Bannister, 64, president of Skipton and Ripon Conservatives, was driving his Range Rover in his hotel and spa complex when it collided with 66-year-old Judith Wadsworth who was crossing a pedestrian walkway.

Mrs Wadsworth, who was a guest at the hotel and was there to see her daughter get married, is believed to have died at the scene of the accident at the Coniston Hotel Country Estate & Spa in Skipton.

Mr Bannister, the hotel’s managing director, was charged with causing death by careless driving but denied the allegation and, following a trial at Bradford Crown Court which lasted over a week, the prosecution today decided to offer no further evidence.

Judge Jonathan Gibson directed the jury to return a formal not-guilty verdict and Mr Bannister was allowed to walk free from court. 

Prosecuting barrister Michael Smith said that the “evidential test” had not been met and that there was no longer a “realistic prospect of conviction”.

He said the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) would therefore be offering no further evidence against Mr Bannister.

He added: 

“In light of all the evidence this jury have heard…the CPS take the view there is no longer a realistic prospect of conviction in this case.”

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Defence barrister Lisa Judge said there had been “flagrant failings” by the CPS in its prosecution of the case, both evidentially and in terms of disclosure. 

She said the defence would be seeking costs for Mr Bannister following the prosecution’s decision to drop the case and the not-guilty verdict. 

Judge Mr Gibson said he thought the prosecution’s decision to drop the case was “entirely appropriate”.   

During the trial, the jury heard that Mr Bannister had turned right out of a junction near the hotel reception and didn’t see Mrs Wadsworth.

The prosecution said that Mrs Wadsworth, who was walking from the car park back to the reception after collecting items from her vehicle, fell under the vehicle but it was not until Mr Bannister got out of his vehicle 20 metres down the road that he realised he had struck someone.

Mrs Wadsworth, who was staying at the country hotel in Coniston Cold to see her daughter Rebecca Blacka get married, suffered fatal injuries. 

Ms Blacka was in the hotel reception at the time of the fatal collision at about 5.20pm on Feb 7, 2020.

Mr Bannister, of Mark House Lane, Bell Busk, near Skipton, had driven the vehicle around a turning circle outside reception and turned right when the Range Rover ran over Mrs Wadsworth on the walkway between the car park and reception area. 

A family statement following Mrs Wadsworth’s death described her as “a devoted wife, mother and grandmother”.

“Judith was a beautiful, selfless person and no words can express our sense of loss and devastation right now,” the statement said.

Ripon Conservatives president denies causing death of woman by careless driving

A hotel boss ran over and killed a woman in the grounds of his spa complex, a court heard. 

Nicholas Ayrton Bannister, 64, was driving his Range Rover out of a junction onto an access road near the hotel reception and car park when the vehicle struck 66-year-old Judith Wadsworth, who was a guest at the Coniston Hotel Country Estate & Spa in Skipton.

Mr Bannister, the hotel’s managing director and president of Skipton and Ripon Conservatives, turned right out of the junction and didn’t see Ms Wadsworth, a jury at Bradford Crown Court was told.

Prosecutor Michael Smith said Ms Wadsworth fell under the vehicle but it was not until Mr Bannister got out of his vehicle 20 metres down the road that he realised he had struck someone.

Ms Wadsworth, who was staying at the country hotel in Coniston Cold to see her daughter Rebecca Blacka get married, suffered fatal injuries. It’s believed she died at the scene.

Ms Blacka was in the hotel reception at the time of the fatal collision at about 5.20pm on Feb 7, 2020.

Mr Smith said: 

“Judith Wadsworth was attending the Coniston Hotel…to attend her daughter’s wedding.

“The party was in reception and people were bringing things into reception, and Mrs Wadsworth was bringing in items for her daughter from the car park into the reception.”

The trial was heard at Bradford Crown Court.

The trial was heard at Bradford Crown Court.

Mr Bannister, who runs the family business, was also in reception chatting to staff. CCTV showed Ms Wadsworth, who is also a grandmother, drop off a box and then go back out to the car park, ostensibly to collect more items from her car.

Mr Bannister then left the reception to get into his vehicle parked outside the hotel to drive to the spa complex. 

He drove the vehicle around a turning circle outside reception and turned right when the Range Rover ran over Ms Wadsworth on a walkway between the car park and the reception area. 

Mr Smith said:

“It’s the prosecution case that in the immediate aftermath of the collision, the defendant repeatedly said (to a witness), ‘I didn’t see her’.

“What’s at the heart of this case is whether the defendant was driving with due care and attention as he drove his Range Rover around his hotel complex.”

He said the fact that Mr Bannister didn’t see Ms Wadsworth “at all, even as he collided with her”, was “evidence that he was driving carelessly”.

Mr Smith added:

“The defence case is that…what happened was an unfortunate accident.

“At the heart of this case is…why the defendant didn’t see Mrs Wadsworth.”

Denies causing death by careless driving

Mr Bannister, of Mark House Lane, Bell Busk, near Skipton, denies causing death by careless driving. The prosecution must prove he was driving carelessly at the time of the collision.

He appeared yesterday for the first day of his trial which is expected to last four days.

Mr Smith said that at the junction of the turning circle and the access road, visibility to the left was obscured by a hotel building and Mr Bannister would also have had to pay attention to vehicles coming from the other direction.

But he said that motorists would also have to pay attention to pedestrians to the right, where he was turning and where Ms Wadsworth, from Baildon near Bradford, was crossing the road on her way back to reception. 

He said that after the Range Rover hit Mrs Wadsworth, Mr Bannister drove on for another 20 metres, only realising he had struck someone when he heard a “noise under the car”.

Natasha Hobson-Shaw, a hotel employee who was the only eye-witness to the collision, was driving out of the complex when she saw the fatal accident.

She said she was driving towards the Range Rover in the opposite direction and stopped her car to allow Mr Bannister to manoeuvre out of the junction.

Mr Smith said:

“As she stopped, she saw Mrs Wadsworth…cross the road and saw the defendant drive into her.

“It may be that Mrs Wadsworth assumed that the defendant was stopping for her as he approached that junction that he was turning out of.”

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He said that, according to Ms Hobson-Shaw, it was clear that after stopping his vehicle following the collision, Mr Bannister “simply had no clue what had happened”. 

Ms Hobson-Shaw got out of her vehicle to help Ms Wadsworth and Mr Bannister said to her: “I didn’t see her.”

Mr Smith said the Range Rover was travelling at about 9-to-12mph at the point of collision.

He said there was “some debris and a bag” at the scene of the collision which Mrs Wadsworth had been carrying.

The prosecuting barrister added:

“We say that the only reason (Mr Bannister) didn’t see her was because he wasn’t driving with due care and attention.”

A family statement following Mrs Wadsworth’s death described her as “a devoted wife, mother and grandmother”.

The statement said:

“Judith was a beautiful, selfless person and no words can express our sense of loss and devastation right now.”

The trial continues.   

Harrogate man jailed for wielding knife and spitting at police officer

A Harrogate man who spat at a police officer after being arrested for wielding a knife in the town centre has been jailed for 18 months.

Matthew Liam Tuck, 28, took out the blade during an argument with two men outside a pizza shop on Station Parade in the early hours of July 29.

He then walked towards one of the men while “waving and brandishing” what was thought to be a kitchen knife, York Crown Court heard.

Prosecutor Jade Bucklow said another man intervened and Tuck was taken to ground. But then Tuck got back to his feet and, still brandishing the knife, lunged at one of the men, although he didn’t try to strike him with the blade.

Tuck then walked around the street holding the knife aloft and a hooded top, said Ms Bucklow.

She added:

“Shortly afterwards, police arrived and the defendant drops the knife and the hoodie in the street.”

Tuck was brought in for questioning but refused to answer police questions. He was kept in custody overnight.

The following day, he pressed the buzzer in his cell to get the attention of custody staff and an officer spoke to him through the cell door shutter as Tuck was becoming “agitated” and started hitting himself in the head. He then spat in the face of the officer through the cell hatch.

Ms Buckle said:

“Some of it landed in her mouth.”

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The officer was taken to hospital for blood tests for Hepatitis B. The prosecution said it was “unclear” whether this was a purely precautionary measure.

Tuck, of Bower Street, was charged with carrying a knife and assaulting an emergency worker. He admitted the offences and appeared for sentence via video link today after being remanded in custody.

Ms Buckley said the victim of the spitting incident said she felt “devastated, disgusted and dirty” after Tuck spat in her face. 

126 previous offences

Tuck, a sometime builder, had 49 previous convictions for 126 offences including violence. In November last year, he received a 16-week jail sentence for assaulting a police officer.

In that incident, Tuck, who was on a police “wanted” list, became “aggressive and verbally abusive” as officers approached him. He resisted arrest and kneed one of the officers in the crotch.

Defence barrister John Batchelor said Tuck’s recollection of the incidents in July were “sketchy” as he had taken Diazepam. 

He said that Tuck “lost his head” after his partner told him she had been assaulted. However, Tuck was “in no fit state” to aim his ire at the men he targeted outside the pizza parlour.

Recorder Mr T. Clayson said Tuck’s attack on the men in the street was born of “nothing” and described his spitting at the officer as “very offensive”.

He told Tuck: 

“This was bad and you know you have got to serve a prison sentence for it.”

He added, however, that the officer’s seeking treatment at hospital appeared to be preventative rather than due to an actual diagnosis of Hepatitis B.

The judge described Tuck’s criminal record as “appalling”, adding that it was “extremely sad to see a young man now leaving his formative years who (is) still getting into the sort of trouble which is pretty inexcusable for someone who is 28”.

Mr Clayson said the only way Took was going to turn his life around and stay out of trouble was by renouncing drugs and getting a job. 

Tuck will serve half of the 18-month jail sentence behind bars before being released on prison licence.  

Ripon man jailed for two crazy police chases

A man high on cocaine rammed his car into a police vehicle, ripping off its registration plate, during a death-defying chase through Harrogate, Knaresborough and Ripon.

Craig Harper, 34, reversed his Vauxhall Astra into the police car, causing the two vehicles to become “wedged” together, York Crown Court heard.

He then stepped on the accelerator, moving the car back and forth, which caused the front of the police vehicle to lift up and its registration plate to fly off.

Prosecutor Beatrice Allsop said that Harper — who was 16 times over the specified limit for cocaine — was on bail at the time and banned from driving, having been arrested and charged with dangerous and drug-driving following a previous police chase on New Year’s Eve 2022.

That first chase occurred in the early hours of December 31 when two traffic officers on the A59 Harrogate Road in Knaresborough were radioed by a colleague telling them that a man in a VW Golf had failed to stop for officers in Harrogate.

They drove to the location in Bogs Lane and saw the Volkswagen driving towards them with its light off. Three males were inside the car which sped towards the A59 towards Knaresborough.

Harper went along Bogs Lane.

Harper took a roundabout on the A61 the wrong way then headed towards Ripley, South Stainley and Ripon.

Ms Allsop said the conditions were so wet there were “large areas of standing water” on the road. Harper lost control on one of these pools of water and veered across the centre white lines before careering off the road and “rebounding” back into the carriageway.

Undeterred, he stepped on the gas again, heading towards Ripon at speeds of up to 75mph while cutting corners, driving on the wrong side of the road, speeding round blind bends and at one stage narrowly avoiding an oncoming vehicle.

He then revved up to about 80mph in a restricted speed zone and overtook a line of cars near a bend as he bombed down the A61 and into Ripon.

He sped down Harrogate Road, a 30mph zone, at double the speed limit and into Ripon town centre, shooting through red lights and going the wrong way around a roundabout. He then sped down a one-way street near Ripon Cathedral, shot through red lights again and went down another one-way street in the wrong direction.

He then turned into North Street and sped out of the town and through a village where police tried to box him in.

Harper’s vehicle was brought to a stop next to a grass verge. Officers ran over to the vehicle, but Harper put up a struggle as they tried to restrain him.

He was arrested and taken into custody where a drug-drive test revealed he had a “shockingly high” 800mcg of cocaine per litre of blood, the specified limit being 50mcg.

Ms Allsop said the chase, through towns and villages including Masham, lasted over 20 minutes.

Back causing ‘mayhem’

Harper admitted dangerous and drug driving and was bailed and given an interim motoring ban, but on May 2 he was back out on the roads in a different car but causing the same “mayhem”.

Ms Allsop said two patrol officers in an unmarked police car in Leeds spotted him driving a Vauxhall Astra.

They followed the vehicle after Harper, who had a male passenger, turned onto Lady Pit Lane and then into St Francis Close, where he stopped the car and reversed “at speed” towards the police vehicle. The Astra collided with the front offside of the police car, causing it to “jolt and shake”.

Ms Allsop added:

“The Astra became wedged onto the front of the police vehicle.

“Officers shouted at him, telling him to turn the engine off. They could tell he was under the influence of (substances) as his eyes were glazed and vacant.

“He was trying to free the (Astra) from the police vehicle by going forward and into reverse. At one point, (the Astra) lifted the front end of the police vehicle.

“He managed to free the car by driving forward at speed, causing the wheels to spin. Part of the police registration plate flew off.”

Once free from the police vehicle, Harper turned right into a cul-de-sac and came to a dead end. He put the car into reverse again as officers caught up with him and rammed the Astra into the police vehicle.

The Astra again collided with the front offside of the police car. The officer got out of the vehicle and ran to the driver’s side of the Astra.

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Harper tried to escape but police smashed the driver’s window with a baton, opened the door and tried to drag him out, but the engine was still running and he was still trying to drive away.

They finally took him to ground after using reasonable force and cuffed Harper who refused a roadside breath test. He was taken into custody at a police station in Leeds and again refused to have a toxicology test.

Harper, of Holbeck Close, was charged with dangerous driving, causing over £1,600 of damage to the police vehicle, driving while disqualified and failing to provide a specimen for analysis. He admitted this second set of offences and appeared for sentence via video link yesterday after being remanded in custody.

61 previous convictions

The court heard he had 61 previous convictions for over 100 offences including driving while over the limit for drink and drugs, driving while disqualified and aggravated vehicle-taking. At the time of his latest offences, he was on a community order for assaulting an emergency worker.

Defence barrister Matthew Stewart said the father-of-three started abusing drugs after losing his job and was now on benefits.

Judge Simon Hickey told Harper he had caused “mayhem” on the county’s roads and described his criminal record as “shocking”.

Harper was jailed for two years and two months and slapped with a five-year driving ban.

 

Seb Mitchell trial: Murder accused stabbed victim after row

WARNING: The following report contains details which some people may find upsetting.

Harrogate knife victim Seb Mitchell was stabbed to death after a row over a broken mirror, a court has heard.

The incident occurred at a house in Harrogate where the two teenagers became embroiled in a row, a jury at Leeds Crown Court was told yesterday.

The boy accused of Seb’s murder, who can’t be named for legal reasons, stabbed Seb in the chest with a kitchen knife which led to a fatal loss of blood and cardiac arrest.

He appeared for the first day of his trial, expected to last six-to-seven-days, yesterday after pleading not guilty to murder. 

Three teenagers who witnessed the horrific incident in the early hours of February 19 this year went to Seb’s aid and called police and an ambulance as he lay barely conscious on a sofa.

Prosecutor Peter Moulson KC said a broken mirror and pane of glass in the kitchen appeared to be the “catalyst” for the fatal stabbing after the boys started arguing and scuffling. 

When police arrived, Seb, who was 17, was unresponsive and falling deeper into unconsciousness. Officers found blood stains in the kitchen, living room and a settee, and a red stain on one of the knives from the kitchen block. 

Seb 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.

Despite the best efforts of doctors, he died two days later.

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 murder suspect, from Harrogate, was brought in for questioning but refused to answer police questions during three separate interviews. He also refused to provide blood and urine samples.

However, he did provide a prepared, legally assisted statement claiming initially that the stabbing was in self-defence and that Seb was the aggressor.

Grabbed knife during argument

The two girls told police that the defendant grabbed a knife from the kitchen and confronted Seb with it during the argument which led to scuffling.

One of the girls said the defendant pushed her away before grabbing the knife and “pointing it at Seb”.

She said:

“We were all trying to hold [the defendant] back.”

She said he seemed “fixated with the [victim]” and that the defendant told Seb: “I’m going to wet you up.”

Mr Moulson said the expression “wet you up” was “London slang” for a stabbing. 

Leeds Crown Court. Picture: the Stray Ferret.

Leeds Crown Court

She said she heard the defendant repeatedly saying to the victim: “I’m gonna kill you.”

She saw Seb and the defendant “on the floor, in the corner of the kitchen, with glass smashed around them”.

They ended up “face to face” while the others tried to pull them apart, but the teenager wielding the knife was “still not listening” and was pushing her away.

She said he pointed the knife towards Seb’s stomach. She tried to grab the knife from the defendant, but he told her: “Don’t touch my f****** knife.”

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 bleeding.

‘Fell on the knife’

The girl called 999 and was told by the teenage defendant 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 the defendant “could kill them” too. 

The girl, who was “too scared to say what actually happened”, told the call-handler: 

“Please be quick. He’s dying. Please. He’s 17. He’s going. He’s just about [breathing] but he’s going.”

In the 999 call – an audio recording of which was played to the jury – the defendant could be heard telling the girl to tell the operator that Seb “fell on the knife”.

Screaming, groans and desperate shouts of “Please, help” could be heard in the background.

The girl told the call-handler: 

“He fell on the floor. There was a knife on the floor. We all had a drink. We need an ambulance. He’s bleeding seriously. He’s not responding.”

A male voice can then be heard saying:

“We need [an ambulance] now or he’s gonna die. He’s unconscious; he’s not responding in the slightest. He’s breathing but he’s not there.”

The girl later told police that Seb was backing away from the defendant who was “getting a bit closer” with the knife and “getting louder and louder”. 

She said the defendant was acting “like he wanted to hurt all of us in there”, which was “very scary”.

The other girl said she saw the defendant “making jabbing motions” with the blade before stabbing Seb. 

She added:

“We were all trying to stop it.

“We were like, ‘You can’t do this, you can’t do this, it’s not worth it’.”

She said the defendant was “waving the knife around, putting the knife to [Seb’s] stomach, jabbing [the blade]”.

“That’s when I looked away and when I walked round the corner there was like a silence… with [the defendant] saying, ‘I’m going to wet you up, it doesn’t take much to put it in you.”

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She then heard her male friend shouting: “You actually just stabbed him.” 

She said Seb was “really drunk”.

The defendant and another teenager were giving Seb chest compressions in an attempt to revive him.

When police arrived, the defendant told them:

“It was me. I was scared. Really sorry. Everyone here are witnesses. I promise I was just trying to defend myself. You can arrest me. This wasn’t meant to happen.”

Mr Moulson said this was a key part of the prosecution evidence as the boy was no longer saying the victim fell on the knife and claiming it was an accident.

The male teenage witness told police that Seb, a black belt in karate who also played football, was the aggressor initially and that the stabbing was an accident. 

He said he saw the two boys wrestling in the kitchen following an argument about the broken glass and then the defendant grabbed a knife and told Seb he would “poke him”.

‘Didn’t intend to kill’

The defendant, who admitted manslaughter at a previous hearing, accepts that he deliberately stabbed Seb but denies murder. He claims he didn’t intend to kill or do really serious harm to the teenager. 

The prosecution now has to prove that he intended to kill or cause Seb really serious harm to prove murder.

Mohammed Nawaz KC, for the defendant, said:

“We do not say he acted in self-defence. We accept it was not responsible or proportionate for [the defendant] to pick up a knife in response to what was going on.”

He added, however, that it was the defence’s contention that it was not a deliberate stabbing with intent to kill Seb or cause him really serious harm. 

A paramedic who arrived at the scene at about 12.20am said that Seb’s clothes were covered in blood. He was laid on a sofa with a 3cm-long puncture wound to his chest.

The trial continues. 

Knaresborough man jailed for dangerous driving after high-speed police chase

A serial driving offender has been jailed for putting lives at risk during a high-speed police chase through Knaresborough.

Liam Edmondson, 26, a white-collar boxer, sped off when a traffic officer spotted him driving his VW Golf while using a hand-held mobile phone and tried to pull him over at traffic lights. 

But Edmonson ignored the flashing blue lights and sped off, prosecutor Rachael Landin told York Crown Court.

Edmondson drove at speeds of up to 90mph in restricted zones as he overtook vehicles, shot straight over junctions and at one stage drove on the wrong side of the road in midday traffic.

Eventually, following the chase along High Street and York Road, he abandoned the vehicle in a street of Kingfisher Road, ran off and jumped over a boundary fence in a residential garden into a neighbouring property. 

However, a neighbour’s ring doorbell provided video footage of Edmondson’s escape and he was identified by one of the pursuing officers.

Edmondson, of Pasture Crescent, Knaresborough, was charged with dangerous driving, using a hand-held mobile phone, driving while disqualified and without insurance. 

He ultimately admitted all the offences – albeit claiming he was driving at lesser speeds than alleged – and appeared for sentence yesterday.

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Ms Landin said that Edmondson, a fighter in Ultra White-Collar Boxing, had sped through 30mph and 40mph zones during the chase involving two police vehicles on March 3.

Edmonson had failed to slow down even at junctions as he sped and failed to give way to other vehicles as he drove on the wrong side of the road. He was driving so fast that a pursuing police car, travelling at over 90mph, lost sight of the Volkswagen as they approached a roundabout.

Ms Landin said:

“The defendant’s vehicle was found abandoned outside a property (near Kingfisher Road).”

Edmondson’s eight previous convictions comprised 16 offences including many driving matters and serious violence. They included failing to stop after an accident, driving without a licence and insurance, and careless driving.

In April he received a two-year community order for assault occasioning actual bodily harm after knocking a rugby player unconscious inside a bar in Harrogate.

The victim in that case was out drinking with his rugby mates when he was involved in a “heated discussion” with Edmondson in the men’s toilets. 

Edmondson, a self-employed labourer, struck him in the face and the victim was knocked out. The next thing the victim remembered was being woken by police officers while laid out on the floor. He suffered “severe” facial injuries.

Defence barrister Eleanor Durdy said that Edmondson, a father-of-one, had raised a lot of money for charity through his involvement with Ultra White-Collar Boxing. 

A representative for the charity boxing organisation provided a character reference attesting to the fact that Edmondson had trained very hard for his fights and raised money for cancer research.

Judge Sean Morris blasted Edmondson for his reckless driving which had put the lives of police officers and the general public at risk.

Mr Morris added:

“This was midday and there would have been children about.

“You were undertaking ridiculous driving manoeuvres. You could have killed a police officer and that is why dangerous-driving police chases are so very dangerous.” 

Edmondson was jailed for 11 months and given a 17-month driving ban.  

Polish prisoner jailed after absconding to UK to work in Harrogate hospital

A Polish prisoner who absconded from his homeland and used his criminal brother’s identity documents to land a job at Harrogate District Hospital has been jailed for nearly two years.

Przemyslaw Poltorak, 39, used his brother Lucas Poltorak’s Polish identity cards and driving licence to find work as a cleaner at the hospital, earning over £40,000 during his employment there, York Crown Court heard.

Prosecutor Charlotte Noddings said Poltorak, from Harrogate, had a criminal record in Poland but the UK immigration authorities had not yet managed to ascertain the details.

According to Poltorak, his previous convictions were for fraud, theft, drug offences and robbery. He was sentenced to 11 years in jail in 2004 for a “range of offences” and had served seven years when he fled to the UK under a false identity while on day release in 2011. 

Ms Noddings said if Poltorak were jailed by a UK court, the normal procedure would be deportation to his homeland “to answer whatever matters he has to answer for”.

Ms Noddings said:

“He was serving a prison sentence there, was on day release, and never returned to prison.

“He has no legal basis to be here.”

She added, however, that despite his record, if Poltorak had entered the UK under his own identity at the time in question, when the UK was still part of the European Union, he would have been able to get into the country without a hitch.

In fact, Poltorak, trying to disguise his criminal convictions in his own country, chose instead to use his brother’s identity documents to firstly get into the UK and then land a job at Harrogate District Hospital, where he worked without anyone suspecting a thing.

Poltorak admitted fraud in that between June 2013 and June 2023 he used another person’s ID documents to gain employment and thereby make a gain of £150,000 – his earnings at the hospital and a car-manufacturing company in Knaresborough.

He also admitted using identity documents in March 2023 to obtain a driving licence – which meant he was also driving on the UK’s roads illegally – and using those same documents to obtain employment.

Using brother’s identity

Poltorak, of Malham Drive, Harrogate, appeared for sentence yesterday (Thursday, August 3) after being remanded in custody.

Ms Noddings said Poltorak, who was using his brother’s name and identity, was arrested at Harrogate District Hospital.

Ms Noddings said:

“His brother Lucas Poltorak – the real Lucas Poltorak – is a sex offender in Poland who was arrested at Leeds/Bradford Airport and refused entry to the UK.”

On that same day in November 2022, immigration officials converged on Przemyslaw Poltorak’s home and arrested him. They seized a “driving document related to Lucas Poltorak”.

Ms Noddings said that a driving record in the name of Lucas Poltorak was created on March 9, 2020. Przemyslaw Poltorak had used his brother’s details on his application for a driving licence.

She added:

“Enquiries were made about how he obtained a job at Harrogate hospital.

“He made an application (for a job) in the name of Lucas Poltorak (and) provided a Polish identity card, a provisional driving licence and a utility bill in the name of Lucas Poltorak.”

Poltorak was paid £42,337 during his employment at the hospital. 

However, further enquiries revealed that between 2013 and 2020, he had also been employed by a car-manufacturing firm in Knaresborough which he had secured by using the same false identity cards.

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During his seven-year stint at the car company, he earned £111,631, said Ms Noddings.

Home Office officials reviewed his records and downloaded text messages from his phone which had been seized at the hospital. They showed that Poltorak had been passing himself off as his brother Lucas.

When the real Lucas Poltorak was identified, it transpired that Border Force officials had refused him entry to the UK when he landed at Leeds/Bradford Airport in November 2022. 

Further scrutiny by immigration officials revealed that Lucas Poltorak had been granted the right to settle in the UK in June 2021 but was then refused re-entry a year later when his previous convictions were discovered.

‘Hard working man’

Kevin Blount, Przemyslaw Poltorak’s solicitor advocate, said his client had left prison in Poland on day release and used his brother’s identity cards to travel to the UK with his wife and children, but that in fact he could have done so legally when the country was part of the EU and borderless travel. 

He said that Poltorak had since lived a “law-abiding life” in the UK, “save for the fact that it was in the wrong name”.

Mr Blount added:

“He used his brother’s (name) not to avoid British passport control, but to avoid Polish emigration authorities because he was due to return to serve the end of his sentence.”

He said that a European arrest warrant for Poltorak had still not been issued despite his detention and during the transition period when the UK was in the process of leaving the EU, he still had a right to work in this country “under his own name”.

Mr Blount said that Poltorak was a “hard working man” and even though he had lost his legal status in the UK, his family still had a right to live here.

Judge Simon Hickey said it appeared that Poltorak had fled Poland not just for a “better life for your family”, but also because he would have served a whole jail term for his previous offences in his homeland, whereas in the UK he would have been released at the halfway point.

He said that the “real seriousness of (Poltorak’s offences in the UK) was “working for that vast amount of time and concealing who you were”.

Poltorak received a 20-month jail sentence but will only serve half of that sentence behind bars before being released on prison licence, although his deportation is still in the offing. 

Knaresborough man jailed for strangling former partner

A man who strangled and terrorised his former partner has been jailed for nearly two years.

Craig Moorey, 31, from Knaresborough, strangled the victim to the point where she was struggling to breathe, York Crown Court heard.

He handed himself in following the drunken attack – albeit only because he knew the named victim had called police – but after being quizzed about the assault he went back to her home and started banging on her windows, threatening to smash them in.

Prosecutor Andrew Finlay said the assault occurred during an argument at the victim’s home in Harrogate on October 16 last year.

The victim said he only stopped when she pushed him away. Moorey claimed he pushed her away and said he “briefly” strangled her after she threatened to stab him.

The prosecution accepted that the victim had threatened to stab him but did so while being subjected to vile verbal abuse from Moorey. It was also set against a background of violence and domestic abuse she had suffered at his hands.

Mr Finlay said that in the moments before the attack, the victim had asked Moorey to leave after returning home to find empty beer cans strewn around the room. 

Moorey refused and aimed abuse at her. The argument spilled into the kitchen where he strangled her. 

Mr Finlay added:

“The defendant grabbed her by the neck with both hands and grabbed her clothing.

“She pushed him away before phoning police.”

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Moorey left the house and handed himself in a few days later but refused to answer police questions. 

He was released under investigation but on November 9, while on a bail condition to stay away from the victim, he returned to her home and asked to be let in.

The victim, realising he was drunk, refused, but Moorey returned later that night and flew into a rage after looking inside the house to find she was with her former partner.

Mr Finlay said:

“The defendant was angered by this and banged and punched the windows while threatening to smash them and shouting at her former partner.”

The victim said she was afraid that Moorey would smash the windows because “he had done so before”.

She called police again, told Moorey she had done so, and he left. He was brought in for questioning and again refused to answer police questions.

Drink problem

Moorey, of Main Street, Scotton, was charged with offences including intentional strangulation, assault and threatening to damage property. He denied the allegations but ultimately admitted strangulation and threatening to damage property on the day of trial.

The allegations he denied were either dropped by the prosecution or allowed to lie on court file. 

He appeared for sentence via video link on Friday (July 28) after being remanded in custody. 

Mr Finlay said the former couple’s relationship ended a few years ago after the victim had suffered a catalogue of domestic abuse.

Moorey, a father-of-two, had nine previous offences on his record including damaging the victim’s property, sending offensive communications and breaching a restraining order. There had been previous violence against the victim.

Moorey’s defence counsel said that his client, a ground worker, had already spent about six months on custodial remand.

Judge Simon Hickey noted previous violence against the victim and that Moorey appeared to have a drink problem.

He added: 

“This lady has spoken a number of times (in the past) of finding you in drink and cans of alcohol littered around the premises. That is your problem, I’m afraid, Mr Moorey. Drink is your downfall.”

Moorey was given a 22-month jail sentence and handed a 10-year restraining order to keep him away from the victim.

Knaresborough takeaway owner ordered to repay £55,000 after tax fraud conviction

A Knaresborough takeaway owner has been ordered to repay £55,000 after being convicted of tax fraud. 

Razaul Karim, 50, appeared for a financial-confiscation hearing at York Crown Court yesterday (Thursday, July 27) when judge Simon Hickey ordered him to pay back all the money to the public purse. 

Karim, of Lunan Terrace, Leeds, was given three months to pay £55,003 or face a nine-month prison sentence if he defaulted.

In September last year, the takeaway boss was given a two-year suspended prison sentence after he admitted four counts of fraudulent evasion of VAT. The offences spanned more than three years, between March 2017 and April 2020.

He was caught following an investigation into his tax affairs relating to his business, the Paragon Indian takeaway on High Street.

Prosecutor Timothy Jacobs said the business had operated for many years and that between 2013 and 2015 it was VAT-registered.

However, at some point in 2015, Karim deregistered the business from VAT after claiming that the business was under the income threshold for paying the value-added tax.

An investigation into the business was launched, which was aided by records from two well-known delivery firms which provided services for the takeaway. The records, from August 2019, suggested that the takeaway’s turnover was way over the threshold at which companies should pay VAT.

Investigators looked into the business’s takings for the years from March 2017 and found that the turnover exceeded the VAT threshold in delivered food alone, let alone purchases made in the shop.

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They found that the business’s turnover was just under £130,000, well over the £85,000 threshold. The total amount of unpaid tax was over £51,700.

Police brought Karim in for questioning in May 2021 when he ashamedly tried to blame his accountant for the tax irregularities, but later owned up to the fraud.

However, sentencing judge Mr Hickey said that because of Karim’s hitherto clean record and otherwise “exemplary” character, he would not be sending him to jail.

He said Karim’s fraud was “out of character” and committed possibly because he was going through financially hard times. 

He said that Karim was a hard-working man who had responsibilities as a father and that at the time of the offences he was “probably” struggling to pay his bills and employees.

Mr Karim’s wife Kalpana Begum Karim, 46, with whom he ran the business, had been charged with the same offences but denied the allegations. The prosecution dropped all charges against her.

Harrogate dominatrix ordered to pay £1 in £100,000 sex-trafficking racket

A Portuguese dominatrix who ran an international sex-trafficking and prostitution racket, earning over £100,000 in the process, has been made to repay just £1 to the public purse.

Fabiana De Souza, 43, and her English husband Gareth Derby, 55, were jailed for a combined 10 years in February last year after they were caught trafficking sex workers from Brazil and Portugal and running a brothel in Harrogate, where many of the sex workers were based after being flown in from abroad. 

Jessica Strange, prosecuting at today’s financial confiscation hearing at Leeds Crown Court, said that De Souza, who was excused attendance at court, had made £136,484 from the human-trafficking plot but had just £1 available in her accounts. 

She said the prosecution’s financial investigator found that she had no hidden assets. 

Derby, who appeared via video link from Moorland prison, had made profits of £28,288 and had £1,045 in cash or assets available. 

Mr Recorder R Ward ordered him to pay £1,045 into the public purse but De Souza was ordered to pay a solitary pound.

The former dominatrix was given one month to pay or face a further four weeks in prison. The former sex worker is due to be deported from the UK when she’s released from jail.

De Souza’s barrister Michael Fullerton said she was due to be deported on August 21.

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He claimed that some of her financial gains during the trafficking racket were from her work as a beautician and in the fitness industry. 

He said this money was “not…earned by her as a dominatrix with her own website during that period”.

Women treated like ‘commodities’

During the trial at the same court in December 2021, the jury heard that De Souza and Derby, from Norfolk, had been “flying in” sex workers from Europe and South America.

Prosecutor Nicholas Lumley KC said the couple treated the women like “commodities” as they made massive sums from their illicit trade.

De Souza, who provided dominatrix services to people in Harrogate, was said to be the ringleader of the “large-scale commercial operation” in which she and Derby, a high-earning engineer and machine specialist, flew in sex workers from Brazil and Portugal, paid for their flights and met them at airports, before sending them to sex dens where men paid for “massages” and “full (sex) services”.

They had exploited the “vulnerable” women for “significant” financial gain by “controlling (their) finances (and) choice of clients”, said Mr Lumley.

The prostitutes were put at a “significant financial disadvantage” and forced to lie to police to avoid detection.   

De Souza and Derby, who ran the lucrative business from their home in East Anglia, were arrested in August 2018 and charged with controlling prostitution for financial gain and human trafficking. 

They each denied the charges, but the jury found them guilty on both counts following a 10-day trial.

The charges related to six named women who worked at the Harrogate brothel and two properties in Norfolk between April 2017 and August 2018.

Mr Lumley said De Souza rented a two-bed flat in Harrogate town centre through a letting agency “so it could be used for sex…which would be advertised on the internet by these two defendants”.

De Souza and Derby would pay for sex adverts within hours of picking the women up from airports around the country and would “set them up” at the flat on Bower Road. 

The adverts were placed on escort websites and included descriptions of the women. 

They took the bookings and “made the arrangements (with the clients)” who would pay various amounts – from £80 for half an hour to over £1,000 for an overnight stay.

Thousands in bank transfers

Between May 2017 and August 2018, some £38,000 cash was deposited into De Souza’s bank accounts at branches in Harrogate and Norfolk. About £9,000 of bank transfers were then made to accounts in Brazil and Portugal using a money-services bureau. 

Mr Lumley said one woman was flown in on an EasyJet flight from Amsterdam and was picked up by the couple who had driven from Norfolk in a 4×4 pick-up. Derby also drove a Mercedes. 

They would arrange for a train ticket to be available at the airport as they moved the women around the country “or put them on a bus and sent them up to Harrogate or somewhere else”.

Following her arrest, De Souza, who is serving her sentence at a women’s prison in Peterborough, told police she had left her husband in September 2017 with the intention of divorcing him and moved to Harrogate “where no-one knew me”.

She had rented the Bower Road flat for over £700 a month and let rooms out to “others”, some of whom were “friends from Portugal”.

Derby said only that he had an “inkling that Fabia worked at the Harrogate flat as a dominatrix”.

In a text sent to a friend in January 2018, he boasted of being a “smuggler of women”.

Police trawled through the accounts of De Souza and her husband and found they had spent “thousands on air fares” and over £2,000 on adverts alone.

An undercover officer posed as a client to make appointments for the brothel on Bower Road. De Souza would answer the calls in “broken English” and arrange the appointment.

The officer was offered a “range of services”. On his first visit, dressed in civilian clothes, he was met by a sex worker named ‘Lisa’ who buzzed him into the flats above shops. 

De Souza and Derby, of Town Street, Upwell, south-west Norfolk, were each jailed for five years in February 2022.