Jailed in Liverpool: Wicked niece, torture killer and teen rapist
An overview of Liverpool court cases and those jailed for crimes linked to Merseyside
This list includes 16 people locked up for crimes linked to Merseyside this past week.
One judge sentenced a murderer involved in the brutal torture and killing of a dad in front of his children.
Courts heard about a drug dealer who handled a semi-automatic gun, a woman beater who punched an ex lover at a wedding, and a sick paedophile with a vile stash.
One judge sentenced a cruel niece who subjected her vulnerable aunt to months of despicable abuse.
Drug dealers who blighted communities with cocaine and heroin were locked up.
Meanwhile, other disturbing cases included a boy who raped a 13-year-old girl in woodland, just weeks after meeting her online.
Here is an overview of some of the most serious cases to have concluded this past week.
Daniel Weaver
Drug dealer Daniel Weaver handled a semi-automatic gun seized when armed police swooped on a taxi.
Ibrahim Mohammed travelled up from London to collect a black pistol from an address in Toxteth, but was under surveillance by police.
Merseyside and Metropolitan officers intercepted him in a private hire car at the Shell garage, on Edge Lane, at around 9pm, on Saturday, March 6, 2021.
Police then discovered the DNA of Weaver – who was linked by other evidence to the property in Alt Street, Toxteth – on the lethal weapon.
Weaver, 26, of Gilbert Street, Liverpool city centre, admitted possessing a prohibited firearm.
He was jailed for five years and two months.
Mohammed, 23, of Brook Drive, Lambeth, has also admitted possessing a prohibited firearm and is awaiting sentence.
Connor Helps
Connor Helps who sexually assaulted a teenage girl was caught after she managed to call a family member who heard the attack.
The 23-year-old, of no fixed address, attacked the girl at a flat in Warrington town centre after taking her there in September 2019.
He was the second man to attack the girl, aged 17, with the other culprit already serving a prison sentence for his crimes.
Helps pleaded guilty to assault by penetration.
He was jailed for three years and two months.
Dean Critchley
Serial woman beater Dean Critchley punched an ex lover in the face at a wedding.
The 27-year-old and the victim, who had split up 10 months earlier, both went to the ceremony at Alder Root Golf Club in Warrington.
The woman thought he would be nice when she went over to say hello but he was “steaming drunk”, on Tuesday, December 7, 2020.
Liverpool’s courts are some of the busiest in the UK, with a huge variety of cases being heard each week.
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A friend of Critchley’s tried to chat her up, which angered the thug, who smashed her phone and punched her in the nose, splitting it, before she fell to the ground and hit the back of her head, causing a lump.
Critchley, of Pennine Drive, St Helens, admitted assault causing actual bodily harm and criminal damage.
He was jailed for 10 months, when he gave a thumbs up sign to the judge.
Danielle Shaw
Danielle Shaw subjected her vulnerable aunt to months of abuse that culminated in her victim trying to kill herself.
She stamped on her aunt’s hands, punched her body and told her she would smash her head through a fish tank.
The 31-year-old also threatened to kill the woman, who has early onset dementia, if she told anyone about her vile behaviour.
Her aunt became so distressed after the final attack this spring that she took a bus to Liverpool’s waterfront with the aim of taking her own life.
The victim was found by police in early April after sleeping rough in the city centre for days.
Shaw, of no fixed address, admitted wounding and was jailed for two years and five months.
Harrison Laite
Harrison Laite used an Encrochat phone to supply multiple kilos of cannabis on the streets on Merseyside.
The 25-year-old, of Moss Way, Croxteth, sent text messages under the handle “LoadedSun” discussing the sale of £136,000 of cannabis.
He was arrested in April at Stansted Airport as he returned from Spain, where he had stayed for a few weeks.
Laite admitted conspiracy to supply cannabis.
He was jailed for four years.
Paul Stanhope
Lorry driver Paul Stanhope attacked a man with a metre long wooden stick after his victim’s vehicle engine disturbed his sleep.
He was in his lorry at around 6am when he was woken up by the sound of Ramunas Kiaulys’ HGV in the Kirkdale compound on Sandhills Lane.
The 38-year-old, who was not due to begin work till 10am, got out of his cab and was abusive towards Mr Kiaulys, on January 16, 2020.
Mr Kiaulys shouted at him to calm down but Stanhope went back to his own lorry, then smashed the victim’s passenger window with the stick.
He hit the victim more than 10 times, smashed his driver’s window, and when the victim defended himself, produced a knife and threatened to kill him.
Stanhope, of Bluebell Way, Bamber Bridge, Preston, admitted assault, affray and two offences of criminal damage.
He was jailed for 14 months.
Belle Parri
“Toxic” fraudster Belle Parri tried to remortgage her parents’ home in a bid to buy a nightclub.
The 53-year-old set out to steal her two siblings’ inheritance following the death of their parents, George and Linda Slack.
Parri was in charge of their estate and was legally obliged to divide the proceeds of any future sale of their house, in accordance with their wishes.
But instead she transferred their property in Runcorn into her own name and tried to remortgage it to buy a nightclub in Denbigh, Wales.
When her frauds were discovered, Parri, aka Alison Slack, lied and blamed a finance company for “cutting and pasting” her name onto a form.
Parri, of Westfield Road, Runcorn, admitted four charges of fraud and dishonesty.
She was jailed for 15 months.
Seamus Starr
Seamus Starr told his ex-girlfriend he would petrol bomb her house and “put her in the canal” in two booze-fuelled rants.
He sent his former partner the threatening messages in December of 2020 and January 2021, just after their brief relationship ended.
One came after she had already reported him to the police, with Starr threatening her with violence if she didn’t “drop charges”.
Starr, 34, of County Road, Walton, admitted sending malicious communications and witness intimidation.
He was jailed for eight months.
Shaun Bennett
Shaun Bennett raped a 13-year-old girl in woodland just weeks after meeting her online.
The 15-year-old later subjected her to a second sex attack, then threatened her on Instagram when she went to the police.
Now aged 18, a judge branded the remorseless sex offender “utterly shameful and wicked” and also “highly dangerous”.
Bennett, formerly of Liscard, Wallasey, but now of Bishopgate Street, Wavertree, admitted rape, sexual assault and assault by penetration.
He already had a conviction for sexually abusing a young girl when he was aged just 14, for which he received a 12-month referral order in 2018.
In 2019 he befriended his 13-year-old victim online and raped her in parkland in Wirral, then molested her on a second occasion just days later.
Bennett was locked up for seven and a half years, with an extended five years on licence.
Jack Thornhill
Drug dealer Jack Thornhill was found with wraps of cocaine, hundreds of pounds in cash and a knuckleduster in his car.
The 21-year-old was stopped by police in a black Volkswagen Golf in Central Avenue, Southport, at around 2am, on October 6, 2020.
Officers found two mobile phones on him and eight wraps of cocaine, a knuckleduster and £735 in cash inside his car, before he tested positive for cocaine.
Police went to his home in Griffiths Drive, Southport and found a lock knife in his bedside drawer, a kitchen knife behind his headboard, a further £5,960 in cash, half a kilo of adulterant for mixing drugs, and bags of cocaine weighing 153g in total, with a potential street value of up to £15,000.
Thornhill admitted possessing cocaine with intent to supply, supplying cocaine and possessing knuckleduster.
He was jailed for two years.
Christopher Watts
Convicted sex offender Christopher Watts was caught with hundreds of indecent images of children.
The 50-year-old was arrested when police raided his home in Hambleton Close, Widnes in April 2021 and seized his computer equipment.
The paedophile had used the “dark web” and peer-to-peer sites to stockpile photos and videos showing “very young children” being raped.
Watts was previously jailed for 10 years for four counts of indecent assault and two counts of indecency with a child.
He admitted three counts of downloading and two counts of possessing indecent images, plus one count of possessing a prohibited image.
Watts was jailed for two and a half years.
Derek Williamson
Model railway shop manager Derek Williamson stole £76,000 of goods from his employers to fund his £200 a day cocaine habit.
The 34-year-old joined the firm, Hattons, in November 2017 and four months later he was promoted to stock production manager.
Williamson volunteered to work Sundays when the Widnes warehouse was quiet “to help out his colleagues” but he was actually selecting items and packaging them up ready for delivery to two fake customers.
The addresses were those of his aunt in Liverpool and his brother in Wirral and by the time his dishonesty came to light, he had taken 523 items.
When arrested, his BMW was searched and a bag containing just under an ounce of high purity cocaine worth up to £3,800 was found.
Williamson, of Birkrig, Digmoor, Skelmersdale, admitted two fraud offences and possessing cocaine with intent to supply.
He was jailed for four years and 10 months.
Joshua Dunbavin
Joshua Dunbavin went “berserk” after drinking almost a pint of vodka and hurled a knife at a police officer.
The 19-year-old became “very angry” after a night drinking at his shared home in Sherlock Lane, Wallasey on March 11, 2021.
He attacked his girlfriend Demi Jones by grabbing her by the neck and punching her in the face for no reason, then later grabbed her by the hair.
When two other women dragged him off her, he picked up a TV belonging to one of them and threw it at her, before they locked him out of the room.
CCTV footage showed him in the street, brandishing two kitchen knives at police, and throwing one at an officer, when he narrowly missed the victim.
Dunbavin, who also stabbed a police car tyre, admitted affray, threats with a bladed article, three offences of battery and two offences of criminal damage.
He was locked up for two years.
Nathan Harding and Craig O’Hare
EncroChat dealer Nathan Harding was busted by police after sharing a photo of himself holding cannabis.
Harding, who used the handle “MagicCider”, sold heroin, cocaine and cannabis worth around £1.5million through the encrypted phone network.
Detectives identified the handprints of the 30-year-old, of Maud Street, Toxteth, on a photo he took showing him holding cannabis in his hand.
He used the MagicCider handle between April to May 2020, before it was passed over to another dealer, his drug courier Craig O’Hare.
Harding then used a new handle called “LesserHedge”, to continue carrying out his criminal activity.
Texts showed he discussed the sale of cocaine and heroin with an estimated wholesale value of £521,000, plus 193 kilos of cannabis, worth around £1m.
O’Hare, 33, of Fairfield Avenue, Roby, transported drugs for Harding and supplied up to three kilos of Class A drugs and 10 kilos of cannabis.
Both men admitted conspiring to supply Class A and Class B drugs.
Harding was jailed for 18 years and five months.
O’Hare was jailed for six and a half years.
Christopher Guest More junior
Christopher Guest More Junior who helped torture and murder a dad was slammed for the “sadistic and gratuitous violence”.
The 43-year-old was involved in the killing of Brian Waters, 44, and a brutal attack on a second victim at a cannabis factory run by Mr Waters in Cheshire.
Mr Waters owed a £20,000 debt to cocaine dealer John Wilson, who organised for a gang to lie in wait for him at a farm in Tabley, near Knutsford, in June 2003.
When cannabis factory helper Suleman Razak arrived at Burnt House Farm first he was subjected to a sickening attack by the gang, organised by Wilson.
Mr Waters was then strung upside down, attacked with a metal bar and industrial staple gun, burned and given electric shocks – all in front of his children, Gavin, 25, and Natalie, 21, who were tied up and forced to watch.
Wilson, now 71, James Raven, now 61, and Otis Matthews, now 44, were found guilty of murdering Mr Waters and two counts of conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm to Mr Razak at previous trials.
More Jr – an undercover TV researcher whose DNA was all over the murder scene – fled the UK through Liverpool John Lennon Airport and survived on the run until 2019, when an international manhunt exposed him as a businessman living in luxury under a false name in Malta.
Despite his claims he was at the farm as part of undercover work, he was found guilty of murder and conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm.
More Jr, of no fixed address, was jailed for life with a minimum of 24 years.
