Former North Yorkshire PCSO admits computer misuse offences

A former North Yorkshire police community support officer has pleaded guilty to unauthorised accessing of information on police computer systems.

Daisey Pennock, who was a PCSO at Whitby, appeared before York Magistrates Court to face the offences on Thursday (November 16).

Pennock, 26, admitted seven charges under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. 

The offences took place between April and November 2021.

She was charged following an investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct.

Pennock is due to be sentenced on December 11.

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Harrogate school crash: US colonel to face trial next month

The trial of a highly decorated American colonel accused of seriously injuring two schoolboys in a collision in Harrogate is to take place next month.

Benjamin Oakes, 46, of Tewit Well Avenue, Harrogate, is charged with causing injury by careless or inconsiderate driving on Yew Tree Lane on February 2. He has pleaded not guilty.

Two 15-year-old boys, who cannot be named for legal reasons, suffered serious injuries in the collision near Ashville College.

A pick-up trick has crashed into a wall outside Ashville College

The scene on Yew Tree Lane in February.

A two-day hearing is scheduled to begin at York Magistrates Court on December 11, a case management hearing in York was told on Friday. Mr Oakes, who is on unconditional bail, did not attend.

He previously appeared at Harrogate Magistrates Court in August when both he and magistrates opted not to send the case to crown court, where he would have faced a jury trial.

The schoolboys are expected to give evidence via a video link during the trial.

According to his LinkedIn profile, which was taken down before August’s hearing, Mr Oakes is chief of the space policy division for the US joint chiefs of staff at the Pentagon.

The joint chiefs of staff consists of the most senior leaders in the United States Department of Defense, which advises 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.

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Man, 18, pleads guilty to obstructing police outside Harrogate McDonald’s

An 18-year-old has pleaded guilty to obstructing police on duty following an incident outside McDonald’s in Harrogate yesterday.

Alfie Stevens, of Coates Street, Bradford, appeared before York Magistrates Court today.

He was charged with obstructing a constable in the execution of their duty and breaching bail conditions, however, the latter charge was withdrawn by the court.

Magistrates took Stevens’ guilty plea into account and closed the case after concluding his time spent in detention in custody was sufficient.

A 16-year-old girl was also charged with obstructing a constable in the execution of their duty, as well as obstructing a person assisting a constable in execution of their duty.

She is due to appear at Harrogate Youth Court next month.

The incident took place at 1.40pm outside McDonald’s on Cambridge Road.

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Man fined for fly-tipping in Harrogate district

A man has been fined after hiring people to remove waste which was later found fly-tipped in the Harrogate district.

Jimmy Nicholson, 32, of Lyneburn Cottage caravan site in Northumberland, was prosecuted for failing in his duty of care for waste under the Environmental Protection Act 1990.

He appeared before York Magistrates Court on September 29, where he pleaded guilty to the charges.

Nicholson was convicted after failing to check if the people he transferred the waste to had an upper tier waste carrier’s licence, or a scrap metal collectors’ licence, and he did not obtain a waste transfer document to show what waste had been taken and by whom.

North Yorkshire Council’s environmental protection team launched an investigation into Nicholson in January this year after they were notified by a traffic sergeant from North Yorkshire Police of a large amount of waste fly-tipped on Ox Moor Lane in Cattal.

The tip comprised of broken and dismantled furniture, black leather sofas, plasterboard, dining chairs and other household waste. Within the waste was documentation in the name of Nicholson and a name and address of where the waste had come from.

On the same day, the council’s street cleansing team attended a fly-tip on Springs Lane, Hutton Wandesley, which included plasterboard, broken wood, and within that tip was documentation with the same address as that found within the Ox Moor Lane tip.

It was discovered Nicholson had been employed to clear the property of waste and carry out renovation work. He had used skips for some of the waste but had stored a large amount on the driveway of the property.

In court, he was fined £461, a victim surcharge of £184 and ordered to pay a contribution to North Yorkshire Council’s costs of £850.

Cllr Greg White, executive councillor for managing our environment, said: 

“This prosecution is another example of how our environmental protection and street cleansing teams are taking a strong stance against fly-tipping.

“They work tirelessly to prosecute those who dump waste illegally, which is not only a blight on our beautiful countryside but poses a potential health risk to the public.

“This case should be a lesson to all businesses that they must ensure whoever they give their waste to is authorised to accept it, be that an authorised site or a waste carrier who should have an upper tier waste carriers licence issued by the Environment Agency.”

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Harrogate businessman given suspended sentence for stalking ex-partner

A millionaire Harrogate businessman has been given a suspended jail sentence for stalking and assaulting his ex-partner.

Jason Ronald Shaw, 54, told the named victim he hired a private detective to keep track of her movements and even installed a hidden camera on her phone charger.

Shaw – the owner of Pineheath, the historic Harrogate mansion which has been the subject of much intrigue in the town recently after it was put up for auction at a reduced asking price of £3 million – was charged with stalking, common assault and damaging the victim’s property but initially denied the offences. 

He ultimately admitted all three matters a week after being remanded in custody.   

He appeared for sentence via video link at York Magistrates’ Court today knowing his liberty was in the balance. 

‘Looking dangerous’

Prosecutor Kathryn Walters said Shaw and the named victim had been in a “toxic, on-off” relationship between November 2020 and May this year after meeting at the David Lloyd gym in Harrogate where they were both members. 

Matters came to a head late at night on May 20 when her niece called police to her home in Harrogate after spotting Shaw “snooping around in the garden” and “looking dangerous”.

She told the call operator that Shaw had “turned up looking for (the named victim)” and that he had attacked her following a “tussle over a mobile phone” which caused bruising to her arm.

Shaw had then headed to her home nearby and removed the ring doorbell from the front of the house, before returning to her niece’s property where he rang the doorbell and started shouting.

The two women, who were at the niece’s home, then spotted Shaw in the back of the garden where the named victim’s car was parked. 

They believed he had been “fiddling” with the car’s wheels. They later discovered that valve caps had been removed and the tyres were deflated.

Police arrived and found Shaw hiding in the property wearing only shorts and flip flops. He was duly arrested.

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The named victim told police that she had been stalked by Shaw for over a year during which time he had followed her around in public places, monitored her movements and loitered around her house. 

She said that Shaw had isolated her from friends and family and would take her phone from her “to check what she had been doing”.

Photo taken from the rear of Pineheath, the derelict mansion on Cornwall Road in Harrogate that is currently up for sale. The Rutland Drive building plot is shown in the foreground.

Pineheath in Harrogate

She said he tried to control her and make her financially dependent on him. He would turn up at her workplace and follow her around when she was out shopping.

She said he would constantly make video calls to check “where she was and who she was with”.

Hidden camera

In the moments before the attack on May 20, Shaw had been looking through her phone and asked her who one of her male contacts was. When she told him it was a friend, he grabbed her arm, causing injury.

She said Shaw would “buy her things and then take them from her”. He once gave her a phone charger on which he had installed a hidden camera.

He would turn up unexpectedly when she was out with friends, at the gym or the cinema, and once told her he had hired a private investigator to carry out surveillance on her.

Shaw’s behaviour had had a “huge” impact on her mental wellbeing and self-worth. She had since hired a life coach to help with problems such as sleeplessness. 

The stress she had suffered had affected her work as a beautician and the relationship with her family had deteriorated.

She said she had “absolutely no escape” from Shaw and had lost her bubbly personality. She was left feeling “constantly down, tired and miserable”. 

In 2020, Shaw was given a jail sentence at the crown court for stalking and assaulting another partner. He had also uploaded sexual photos of her onto the internet.

His solicitor advocate Peter Minnikin said that Shaw realised his behaviour was “disgusting”. 

He added:

“He accepts that it is now over and accepts that he needs to improve himself.”

A probation report concluded that Shaw presented a “high risk” to future partners.

‘Cause for concern’

Magistrates’ chairman Mr R Childerhouse said there were “quite a few high risks here that give us cause for concern”.

He said the offences were so serious that they warranted a jail sentence, but that this could be suspended because Shaw had ultimately admitted the offences and there was a “realistic prospect of rehabilitation”.

Shaw was given a 20-week suspended prison sentence with 150 hours of unpaid work and a 30-day rehabilitation programme. He was ordered to pay £125 costs and £500 compensation to the named victim. 

He was also slapped with a five-year restraining order banning him from contacting the victim and entering her street in Killinghall.

Pineheath, the former home of Indian shipping magnate Sir Dhunjibhoy Bomanji, was put up for auction last month at a much reduced asking price after failing to find a buyer. 

The derelict, 40-room mansion on Cornwall Road, near Shaw’s home in Rutland Drive, is part of the Duchy estate and in its heyday as a family home it was fully staffed and had gold-plated taps and a centrally heated garage of Rolls-Royces. 

Following the death of Sir Dhunjibhoy’s daughter in 2012, Pineheath was sold for £2 million to Mr Shaw in 2013.

Bar owner beats council in court to create ‘cool place’ on Cold Bath Road

A Harrogate bar owner will be raising a glass or two after successfully appealing alcohol licence restrictions that he says would have made trading from his Cold Bath Road premises “impossible”. 

Dave Swallow received a licence for his bar, AAA, in November, but it came with conditions.

Harrogate Borough Council said he had to build a barrier to separate his forecourt seating area from the pavement; he had to build a lobby as a sound-proofing measure; and he could only serve alcohol till 9pm. 

He told the Stray Ferret: 

“I couldn’t comply with those conditions as well as the building regulations and the fire regulations all at the same time. It was just physically impossible.” 

So he took North Yorkshire Council, which assumed all Harrogate Borough Council’s functions on April 1, to court – and won. He no longer has to build the barrier or the lobby, and may now serve alcohol from 12 noon till 11pm, as is the norm for bars and pubs in England. 

He said: 

“I’m elated. The waiting is over, the amalgamation of work and stress has lifted and I’ve cleared that hurdle. 

“Now I’ve got a long list of things to do to make sure I comply with the remaining licence conditions, but that’s fine – all bars have to do that. The main thing is, we’re serving now!” 

AAA, pronounced triple-A, is a bar that also sells vinyl records and merchandise from another of Dave’s ventures, clothing brand Audio Architect Apparel. He said he wanted to create “a nice, cool place where people can come to listen to good music on a good sound system, drinking good drinks”. 

He added:

“We’re getting in more vinyl by the week, and we’ll soon be serving breakfast, lunch and sociable, picky stuff in the evenings, such as charcuterie and cheeseboards.

“We’re taking on more staff and we’ll be having an opening party on July 14. After months of waiting, this court victory means we can finally move ahead with our plans.” 

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Two men appear in court charged with wounding man in Harrogate

Two men have appeared in court charged with wounding a man in Harrogate.

Adam Fogarty-Walker, 18, of Ash Grove, Bradford, and Joshua Dane Rider, 18, of Fairfield Terrace, Leeds, appeared at York Magistrates Court yesterday.

Both were charged with maliciously wounding a man in Dragon Road car park on Thursday, June 8.

A third man was initially charged by police in connection with the incident, but charges were later dropped.

Fogarty-Walker and Rider were also charged with carrying a kitchen knife in a public place without good reason or lawful authority.

Meanwhile, Rider also faced two charges of having in his possession two wraps of diamorphine and 28 wraps of cocaine with intent to supply.

The cases were referred to York Crown Court where the three men were ordered to appear on July 10, 2023.

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Ripon man given community order for making indecent images of children

A Ripon man received a community order yesterday for making indecent images of children.

Dilan Anwar, 20, pleaded guilty to two charges of making indecent photographs of a child at a hearing at Harrogate Magistrates Court in March.

Both offences were in June 2021 when officers seized devices from his bedroom, including an iPhone, where a category B image and 12 category C images were found.

The prosecution told the court in March that the images were of females aged between 10 and 17.

Brian Nuttney, mitigating for Anwar, said the 20-year-old felt remorse for his actions and had pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity.

Anwar, of North Road, Ripon, appeared before York Magistrates Court yesterday for sentencing.

He was handed a 12-month community order requiring him to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work.

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The 20-year-old was also ordered to undergo a rehabilitation programme for 34 days and made to pay a victim surcharge of £95 and court costs of £85.

He was also placed on the sex offenders register for five years.

The magistrates court said Anwar’s early guilty plea was taken into consideration for his sentence.

Harrogate police officer given suspended sentence for sex assault

A Harrogate police officer has been given a six-month suspended jail sentence for sexually assaulting a woman at a property in North Yorkshire. 

Joseph McCabe, 27, was found guilty of one count of sexual assault following a trial in February and today appeared for sentence at York Magistrates’ Court.

The court heard that McCabe had only been married six weeks when the incident occurred in 2021.

Prosecutor Richard Blackburn said that McCabe had picked the victim up and placed her on a bed as a “prelude to something else”.

The victim, who was not in a relationship with the policeman, “froze in fear” after the strapping officer “stroked” her on the arm and badgered her for sex.

Mr Blackburn said that when the victim rejected McCabe’s advances, he grabbed or “yanked” her hair and dragged her off the bed, before demanding she had sex with him.

He said that McCabe, a devout Roman Catholic who had drunk about seven pints that night, placed his hand on the woman’s inner thigh and on her back and then lifted her onto a bed, before lying next to her and staring at her. 

Mr Blackburn said:

“He took hold of her arm and began to stroke it.”

When the woman asked him what he was doing, McCabe, a police constable who likes to work out at the gym, made no reply.

Mr Blackburn said the woman was scared and made it clear she didn’t want to have sex.

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About 30 minutes later, McCabe started shouting, “Get into…bed now”, but she again spurned his advances. 

McCabe, who had been in his policing job since early 2020, later apologised for his behaviour, telling the woman he had “reverted back to being my teenage self” and had made an “ill-judged, romantic” advance. 

The woman, who can’t be named for legal reasons, later reported the incident to police.

McCabe, of Kingsley Park Road, Harrogate, denied that his behaviour was sexual despite “stupidly” trying to kiss the woman.

He was suspended by North Yorkshire Police pending the outcome of the trial and his policing career now lies in tatters following the guilty verdict.

The victim said McCabe picked her up and placed her on a bed and that “nothing was said, which I found quite creepy”.

She added:

“He laid on the bed next to me and then he took hold of my hand and (his hand) went up my arm in a stroking motion.”

She said McCabe was moving his hand towards an intimate part of her body, but no contact was made.

She pointed to the Crucifix that McCabe was wearing and said:

“Aren’t you meant to be religious? What are you doing?”

She then “felt my (hair) bun get pulled and I was ragged to the floor”.

She said she was “shouting and swearing” and telling him: “Don’t touch me.”

She added:

“I remember shaking a lot and I didn’t know what to do.

“I just froze in fear. I was in shock.”

She said that during the “horrible” incident, McCabe had “terrified” her and at one stage she feared she might be raped.

McCabe’s barrister Kevin Baumber read out character testimonies during the trial in which friends described him as a “hard-working, kind-natured individual” who took “great pride” in his work. 

His sports coach and best friend said McCabe was a “fun guy but has always been serious and sensible, someone I would go to in a crisis”.

‘No credible explanation’

District judge Tan Ikram said McCabe had given “no credible explanation as to why (the victim) would make up such a serious allegation”. 

Mr Ikram added:

“She was telling the truth about what happened that night, I’m sure of that.

“On the other hand, (you) were cautious in your answers (having had) plenty of time to think about it. You have elaborated to try to make innocent sense of what you did. I’m sure that your intentions throughout were sexual.”

He told McCabe: 

“She never consented (to sex) and you knew she didn’t.”

He said McCabe had shown “no remorse” for his behaviour.

The six-month jail sentence was suspended for two years and McCabe was placed on the sex-offenders’ register for seven years.

As part of the order, he must complete a 100-day alcohol-abstinence programme and up to 20 days of rehabilitation activity.

He must also take part in a 43-day sex-offending group-work programme and was made subject to a three-year restraining order which prohibits him contacting the victim. He was made to pay £620 prosecution costs and a £128 victim surcharge. 

Ripon man jailed for assaulting woman while on bail

A man has been jailed after assaulting a woman in Ripon while on bail.

Steven James Brown, 35, appeared before York Magistrates Court on Tuesday charged with assault causing actual bodily harm on February 7.

Brown, of Skelldale Close in the city, pleaded guilty to assaulting the named victim on Lynden Close while on bail.

The court jailed the 35-year-old for 35 weeks.

Magistrates said the offence was aggravated by the defendant’s previous record and that it was committed while Brown was on bail.

The court also ordered Brown to pay a victim surcharge of £187.

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