A house in Jennyfields has been closed amid concerns about anti-social behaviour.

Harrogate Magistrates Court granted a closure order for 46 Bramham Drive on Thursday.

The order bans people from entering the property for three months.

Harrogate Borough Council applied for the order under section 80 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014.

The closure order on the door of the property.

A copy of the order, attached to the door of the property, said the court was satisfied there were either concerns about “disorderly, offensive or criminal behaviour on the premises”, the house being used for “serious nuisance to members of the public” or nearby disorder related to the premises.

The document also says “access to the premises is prohibited by all persons” until February 3 except by an authorised council officer and one other named person.

The Stray Ferret has asked the council for further details of why it applied for the order. A spokesman said:

“We applied for the closure order following concerns about drug use and anti-social behaviour.”

In May, the council successfully applied to magistrates for a three-month closure order on a house on Cawthorne Avenue, in the Fairfax area of Harrogate following claims a drug-dependent woman was being exploited by drug dealers.

Last year the council and police also secured the three-month closure of two homes on Avenue Grove in Starbeck.

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A man will face trial at York Crown Court after allegedly carrying out a series of attacks in central Harrogate.

Vaughn Ellis, 40, of Grove Park Terrace in Harrogate, appeared at Harrogate Magistrates’ Court this morning facing six charges relating to incidents on April 19 this year.

He has been charged with two counts of assault by beating against two people in Oxford Terrace, as well as criminal damage to a door in the same location.

He also faced two charges of attempted robbery, to which he indicated not guilty pleas, on West Park, along with one count of using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour to cause harassment, alarm or distress, also on West Park.

Magistrates ordered that Mr Ellis be sent to York Crown Court for trial on all six counts. He was given a preliminary date of November 14, when he will be asked to enter formal pleas.

In the meantime, he was bailed and ordered not to make direct or indirect contact with any of the alleged victims.

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A Pateley Bridge man has pleaded guilty to performing a lewd act in a car park on Harrogate’s Station Parade.

Thomas Watson, 29, of Millfield Street, appeared before magistrates in Harrogate on Thursday last week.

He was charged with outraging public decency by masturbating in a public car park on September 3 this year.

Watson was remanded on unconditional bail until October 13.

Pre-sentence reports will be prepared before he next appears in court.

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A Harrogate man has been given a community order after stealing a £24,000 Rolex watch from Rudding Park Hotel.

Jake Perks, 32, of Jennyfield Drive, pleaded guilty to theft when he appeared before Harrogate Magistrates Court yesterday.

The court heard how Perks had visited the hotel on a spa day with his girlfriend on April 22 this year.

The named victim, who owned the Rolex GMT Master II watch, had left it in the changing rooms to go in the shower.

On his way out of the hotel sometime later, he realised he did not have his watch on and could not find it in the hotel.

The Rolex was reported stolen to police and Perks later made a full admission to taking it after noticing it in the changing rooms.

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The prosecution said he handed the watch into police after it was in his possession “for a number of weeks”.

His defence lawyer said it was “an offence committed on impulse” and that he had no previous criminal history.

“He accepts that he has taken the watch and it was out of character.”

The defence added that Perks had been going through a long divorce with his ex-wife and had personal issues.

The magistrates said they accepted that the matter was “an unfortunate lapse in judgement”.

However, the court issued Perks with a community order and ordered him to carry out 60 hours unpaid work.

He was also ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £95 and £85 court costs.

An 18-year-old has been sentenced in court for assaulting three police officers in Harrogate.

Emily Harris-Jones, of Beech Street in Starbeck, appeared before Harrogate Magistrates Court and was charged with assaulting two emergency workers on July 9, 2022.

She assaulted one police constable on the street before beating the same officer at Harrogate Police Station.

Harris-Jones also assaulted another named officer at the station on the same date.

She was also charged with the same offence against a police officer at Dragon Service Station, Skipton Road, on June 29 this year.

The court found all four offences were aggravated by being committed against emergency workers carrying out their duties.

Magistrates sentenced her to 10 weeks in prison for each count, to be served concurrently, suspended for 18 months. She was ordered to undergo treatment for alcohol dependency.

The court also imposed compensation totalling £200, a victim surcharge of £154 and £170 in court costs.

Magistrates said they took into account Harris-Jones’ guilty plea when imposing the sentence.

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A 35-year-old man appeared in court this week charged with assaulting a staff member at Sainsbury’s in Harrogate.

Skyler Zienlinski, of Fern House, Spa Lane, pleaded not guilty to assault by beating at the store on Cambridge Street on August 1, 2022.

Mr Zienlinski, who appeared before Harrogate Magistrates Court on Thursday, also denied carrying a dismantled scissor blade in a public place without reasonable excuse.

He admitted stealing £40 worth of bottles of wine and Desperados from Sainsbury’s and causing criminal damage to property belonging to the store on the same day.

The court set a trial date of November 21 in Harrogate for the alleged assault and carrying an offensive weapon.

Mr Zienlinski was released on bail under the condition that he does not enter the Cambridge Street store.

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A former Harrogate headteacher repeatedly denied in court making more than 3,000 indecent images of children.

Matthew Shillito, 42, pleaded not guilty to making 20 Category B images and 3,829 Category C images between December 3, 2012 and December 31, 2015.

Mr Shillito was appointed headteacher of Western Primary School in 2019.

He was previously headteacher across the Goldsborough Sicklinghall Federation of schools.

None of the alleged offences related to his employment.

During the case, “making” was defined as knowingly accessing a site that contained an indecent image.

The court was told that there was no evidence that Mr Shillito downloaded the alleged material onto his laptop.

The prosecution opened proceedings at Harrogate Magistrates Court yesterday and said the alleged indecent images were found on the cache in Mr Shillito’s computer, which could have only have got there had he accessed sites with those images.

Philip Morris, prosecuting, said there were “indicative” terms found on Mr Shillito’s laptop which showed intent to access the alleged images.

Searches were ‘legitimate’

However, Kevin Blount, defence, told the court that while the terms found on the computers may have been indicative, they were “not conclusive” as they could also bring up legitimate results.

Mr Blount said that a Russian image website named in court, which was accessed on Mr Shillito’s Dell laptop, contained legitimate images, such as travel pictures, as well as illegal ones.

He added that cached images could have been stored on the laptop from parts of a web page which Mr Shillito did not look at.

Addressing the search terms found on the laptop, Mr Blount said that the terms could bring up “legitimate images”.

He pointed to terms such as “Nabokov Lolita”, which he said could have been a legitimate search for the 1955 novel by Vladimir Nabokov.

He said:

“All of those search terms are capable of bringing back legitimate material.”

Cross examination

During cross examination of Mr Shillito, Mr Blount asked him whether he had visited the named Russian site.

Mr Shillito said:

“I visited it a lot. It was just that it was a website full of photographs.

“It was a moderated site. It was a site that had rules.”

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Mr Shillito told the court that he used the site to look for images he was interested in, such as travel after visiting Croatia in 2011. He said he had also used it for teaching material.

He told the court that while the website was Russian, it was loaded in English and was recommended by technology companies such as Apple as a site to use.

When asked by District Judge Lower if he had seen any indecent images of children, Mr Shillito replied “no”.

He repeatedly denied under cross examination that he had made the alleged indecent images of children.

Summaries of four police interviews with Mr Shillito were also read out in court where he denied the allegations.

iPad disposed

Prosecutor Morris asked Mr Shillito about an iPad mini, which was not recovered by police but a backup was found on a silver MacBook Pro.

Mr Shillito confirmed that he had disposed of the iPad because it was “not updating” and had a crack down the screen. He added that he threw it out during a clear out of his address.

Mr Morris put it to Mr Shillito that he had thrown the iPad out two days before police arrived to arrest him because “he was rumbled”. He denied this and said he was he was not aware that police were coming to his address.

When asked about the number of times he visited pages which were “indicative” of the alleged indecent images, Mr Shillito said he “could not imagine” visiting some of them.

Mr Morris told the court that it was “not just one” occasion that the defendant visited the site.

He said:

“In some cases, you have visited not just once or twice but 30 times.”

The trial was adjourned until August 10.

A former Harrogate headteacher repeatedly visited a website which was “indicative” of alleged indecent images of children, a court heard today.

Matthew Shillito, 42, denies making 20 Category B images and 3,829 Category C images between December 3, 2012 and December 31, 2015.

Mr Shillito, of Gordon Avenue, Harrogate, was appointed headteacher of Western Primary School in 2019.

He was previously headteacher across the Goldsborough Sicklinghall Federation of schools.

None of the alleged offences related to his employment.

Mr Shillito appeared for trial at Harrogate Magistrates Court today.

Philip Morris, prosecuting, told the court that the indecent images were found on the cache in Mr Shillito’s computer, which could have only have got there had he accessed sites with those images.

He said:

“It is the prosecution’s case that those images found as they were on the computer cache were present as a result of the user of the computer accessing indicative content on the internet.”

Police seize computers

Police arrested Mr Shillito and seized two computers at his address on January 4, 2020.

Officers recovered a Dell laptop and a MacBook Pro, which contained a back up from an iPad mini which was not found.

Giving evidence to the court, Zoe Warboys, a digital forensic investigation officer at North Yorkshire Police, said that while the defendant may not have been aware of the cache, he could have only got them by accessing the material.

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A Russian website named in court was frequently accessed on the Dell laptop, which Ms Warboys told the court was a site which contained indecent images of children.

The site is public and allows users to upload albums of images which others can view.

The court heard how the site was frequently visited on February 26, 2011.

Mr Morris told the court that Shillito visited some of the pages which were “indicative” of possibly including indecent images 30 times.

Meanwhile the defendant’s MacBook contained a backup from an iPad mini, which the court heard was not recovered by police during the raid.

Mr Morris said the backup included search terms which were “indicative” of indecent images of children.

A number of Google search terms were also presented to the court, which the prosecution argued demonstrated an intent from the defendant to access the alleged images.

Denies allegations

There was no evidence that Mr Shillito downloaded the alleged images onto his desktop, the court heard.

Mr Shillito repeatedly denied to the court that he had knowingly accessed indecent images of children.

Kevin Blount, defence, said that while the terms found on the computers may have been indicative, they were “not conclusive” as they could also bring up legitimate results.

The court heard how Mr Shillito had also repeatedly denied accessing the alleged images during police interview.

The trial continues.

A 15-year-old boy from Harrogate has pleaded guilty to stealing a car and carrying a knife on the Stray.

The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, also admitted carrying bolt cutters on the Stray in connection with the theft of a car.

All three offences took place on January 20 this year.

The boy was charged with stealing the car from John Street in Harrogate. 

He also admitted being in breach of a conditional discharge order which was imposed for a criminal damage offence in August 2021.

He appeared before North Yorkshire Youth Court, which was held at Harrogate Justice Centre, on Friday to enter his plea.

The court remanded the teenager on conditional bail until July 19 for sentencing.

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Harrogate property developer Adam Thorpe has been banned from driving for 16 months after being caught almost twice over the legal limit.

Thorpe, 41, of Ingerthorpe Hall, Markington, was stopped by police in November last year on the B6265 near Risplith Hill.

He was found to have 66 micrograms of alcohol per 100 ml of breath. The legal limit is 35 micrograms.

Thorpe pleaded not guilty in April but changed his plea at Harrogate Magistrates Court on Friday.

Magistrates said his 16-month disqualification from driving would be reduced by 16 weeks if he completed a course.

Thorpe was fined £984. He was also ordered to pay £98 to victim services and costs of £85 to the Crown Prosecution Service.

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Thorpe announced plans for a £75 million redevelopment of the former Harrogate Borough Council building at Crescent Gardens in 2017.

The plans included luxury apartments, an art gallery, underground car park, swimming pool and restaurant.

But his company ATP Ltd went into administration with debts of almost £11 million.