Three teens guilty of fatal stabbings among the notorious criminals locked up in the UK in June

Three teenagers guilty of fatal stabbings were among the notorious criminals sent to jail in the UK in June.

Rashane Douglas, 19, stabbed three men killing two of them after an argument over a girl in a club. Yura Varybrus, 17, murdered another teenager on a crowded dancefloor at a summer party and Bardia Shojaeifard was just 14 when he stabbed another boy 'in full view' of pupils leaving a primary school.

Other offenders locked up last month include the man behind the viral 'The Dress' meme, who has been sent to jail for assaulting and strangling his wife.

Read more court stories from the Manchester Evening News here.

A childminder who shook a baby who was in her care to death and an anaesthetist who took inappropriate photographs of an adult and a child patient will also spend several years behind bars for their crimes.

Lengthy sentences are handed to some of the worst offenders each month. These are some of the most shocking court cases that have been widely reported in the UK in recent weeks.

Rashane Douglas

A teenager stabbed three men, killing two, after an argument over a girl in a club. Rashane Douglas has been jailed for a minimum of 28 years by a judge who said the case illustrated “the tragic consequences which can follow when a young man carries a knife in public”.

The 19-year-old stabbed Haidar Shah, also 19, Joshua Clark, 21, and Brandon Coupe, 18, in the chest within seconds of each other following a row outside a nightclub in Halifax, West Yorkshire, in the early hours of October 1 last year. Mr Shah and Mr Clark died from their stab wounds, while Mr Coupe survived.

Douglas was jailed for life by Judge Jonathan Rose at Bradford Crown Court after being found guilty earlier this year of murdering Mr Clark and Mr Shah, and wounding Mr Coupe with intent. Judge Rose said: “If you carry a knife, you are more likely to draw it; if you draw it, you are more likely to use it; if you use it, you are more likely to cause injury or death.”

The court heard how Douglas was angry that a woman he had been expecting to meet at Maggie’s bar was with Mr Shah instead. The stabbings happened at 3.45am after Douglas with his friends, and Mr Shah with his friends Mr Clark and Mr Coupe, had all left the bar.

CCTV from the street outside showed Mr Coupe attempt to punch Douglas, before Mr Shah and Mr Clark cross the road towards him. Prosecutors said Douglas then pulled a knife from his pocket and held it in his right hand, appearing to hide it behind his leg. The footage then showed Douglas stabbing the three men, none of whom had a knife, before running away and apparently throwing the knife down a drain.

Zoe Rider and Nicola Lethbridge

Two women who filmed as they tortured a vulnerable man to death will serve at least 26 years in prison. Zoe Rider, 36, and Nicola Lethbridge, 45, attacked their 60-year-old neighbour Stephen Koszyczarski in his Sheffield flat, recording their sadistic, drug-fuelled attack as they falsely accused him of being a paedophile.

Judge Sarah Wright told Sheffield Crown Court how the pair humiliated and terrified Mr Koszyczarski on August 9, last year. He died from his injuries two days later.

Judge Wright said: “You were both clearly fuelled by drugs and probably alcohol. Having heard the evidence in the case I have absolutely no doubt that you went into Stephen’s flat together in order to threaten, attack and rob him, no doubt to finance further drug taking. For whatever reason, during the course of that robbery, you decided jointly to accuse Stephen completely spuriously and without any reason to do so of being a paedophile.”

She said the pair launched a "vicious and extremely violent joint attack", exposing his genitals and threatening to mutilate him. Mr Koszyczarski was left "injured and bleeding with 22 separate injuries about his face, head and body", she told the court.

Rider and Lethbridge, both of Fraser Drive, Woodseats, Sheffield, were found guilty of murder and robbery earlier this year. They were each jailed for 13 years for the robbery of Mr Koszyczarski, to run concurrently with their life terms.

Jurors at the trial were shown harrowing footage shot by Rider and Lethbridge during the attack, which included them threatening to mutilate Mr Koszyczarski with scissors. At one point he pleads with them to stop and one of the defendants replies: “Do you think I give a f***?”

The jury was told Mr Koszyczarski died from a blunt-force force injury to his head which caused a bleed on his brain. Among the many other injuries he suffered was bruising to his chest caused by kicks.

Christopher Latimer

A Scout leader who shared sexually explicit messages with a teenage boy has been jailed for two years. Christopher Latimer, who also worked as a school caretaker, was caught after a friend of the victim raised concerns about messages being exchanged between the defendant and the child.

Detective Constable Steven Rush, of Norfolk Police, said Latimer, 36, abused his position to build a relationship with his victim. Latimer, of Meadow View Terrace, Marsham, was sentenced at Norwich Crown Court to two years in prison for multiple sexual offences, Norfolk Police said.

The force said Latimer had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to engaging in sexual communication with a child, causing a child to watch a sexual act and causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity. The three charges related to one teenage boy, police said.

Latimer was also given a 10-year sexual harm prevention order and ordered to sign the Sex Offenders’ Register for 10 years. He denied two counts of taking indecent images of a child, which the court ordered to lie on file.

Concerns were raised about Latimer in May 2021, and a police investigation established that Latimer had been sending the boy messages for between two and three years.

Keir Johnston

The man behind a social media post featuring a dress that famously “broke the internet” has been sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison for assaulting and strangling his wife.

Keir Johnston, 39, pinned his partner Grace to the ground and choked her during a row at their home on the island of Colonsay, in the Inner Hebrides, in March 2022, the High Court in Glasgow heard. Johnston only released his wife after a witness intervened in the violent incident, the court was told.

Johnston went on to struggle with Mrs Johnston a second time and then brandished a knife and shouted “somebody is going to die” before the witness intervened again.

The couple hit the headlines in 2015 when a picture of a dress worn by Mrs Johnston mother at their wedding ignited an online debate over its colour. Some people said the dress was black and blue while others argued it was white and gold.

The court heard the couple had a “volatile” relationship and Johnston became enraged with his wife at their home during an argument and then tackled her to the ground and strangled her using both hands. Johnston was said to have maintained pressure on her neck until the witness rushed at him and broke up the struggle.

Johnston pleaded guilty at the same court last month to assaulting his wife to her injury and endangering her life. Speaking of Mrs Johnston’s ordeal, the judge said: “She feared for her life. The strangling lasted 20 seconds.”

She imposed a custodial sentence of 54 months, reduced from 60 months to take account of Johnston’s early guilty plea. She also imposed a non-harassment order banning Johnston from contacting or approaching his wife for 10 years.

Leslie Garrett

A man who shot up a cinema complex and a shop with an AK-47 machine gun has been sentenced to 14 years behind bars. Leslie Garrett began his rampage at around 7.30pm on January 3, by entering an off licence and firing the gun at the counter before heading to the Western Approaches pub in the Norris Green area of Liverpool.

While there he had a drink, chatted to customers and showed two men the assault rifle in the back of his Ford Focus, Liverpool Crown Court heard. The father-of-one then left for the Showcase Cinema nearby, where he had worked as a security guard for several years before being sacked for drinking on the job.

The 49-year-old, from Ternhall Road, Fazakerley, went inside and pointed the gun at a member of staff before being followed outside by the current security guard where he fired off a round of shots. The cinema went into lockdown as armed police were scrambled to the scene but Garrett fled in his car at speed.

Garrett, who the court heard had earlier that day drunk one and a half bottles of rum, went to his girlfriend’s address and fired another round of shots, leaving the gun under a mattress at the property. He was Tasered and arrested hours later when armed police descended on his mother’s house.

Police recovered the rifle and found it had been firing live rounds and was a Czech-made AK-47-style military weapon, which had been fired 17 times that night.

Garrett, the court heard, was one of seven siblings, who had witnessed his brother being run over and killed and at aged nine or 10 had witnessed a murder, leading to trauma in his later life. He claimed he had been paid £300 to look after a bag of items, which he agreed to do, and later found out the bag contained the gun and ammunition.

Garrett, at an earlier hearing, pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life, two counts of possession of a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence, attempt robbery and possession of ammunition without a certificate. Judge David Aubrey KC jailed the defendant for 14 years.

Denise Povall

A former primary school teaching assistant who sexually abused a 10-year-old boy has been put behind bars. Paedophile Denise Povall, from Ripon, North Yorkshire, groomed her victim with presents and sent him texts so she could carry out her campaign of abuse.

The detective who led the investigation described her sustained offending as “evil”. She had sexual intercourse with the child and performed sex acts on a number of occasions, North Yorkshire Police said after she was sentenced.

The offences took place in the 2000s when she worked at a school in the Harrogate area. Povall, now 61, continued to deny any offending but was convicted following a trial at York Crown Court.

Her victim came forward in adulthood and complained to the police about what he endured as a primary school pupil, leading to what the force called “an extensive investigation into the teaching assistant and midday supervisor”. That led to her being charged with a number of serious offences including grooming, inciting sex with a child, inciting sexual activity with a child and sexual assault by touching.

A jury convicted her of all the charges. She was jailed for eight years and will sign the sex offenders’ register when she is released.

Joshua Hill

A husband watched in horror as his wife and son were fatally injured in a head-on crash caused by a motorist carrying out a dangerous overtake as they returned from a family holiday.

Angela Boyack, 59, and her son Stephen, 22, were travelling home to South Shields on December 9 after a weekend away in Derbyshire to celebrate her upcoming 60th birthday when the Hyundai they were travelling in was hit by Joshua Hill in his BMW X5.

Mrs Boyack’s husband William and oldest son Alex were driving two cars behind when Hill, 27, tried to overtake an Audi in front of him as he drove southbound on the A632 near Span Carr but did not have enough time to complete to manoeuvre and skidded, crashing into Stephen’s car which he was driving northbound.

In a statement read out at Derby Crown Court as Hill was sentenced to 13 years in jail, Mr Boyack, who was married for 35 years, said the lives of him and his son were “ruined”.

Prosecutor Laura Pitman told the court how Hill had been driving at speeds of up to 72mph on a 50mph stretch of road in wet weather and that the anti-lock braking systems on his BMW was faulty, which may have lessened the speed at the point of impact had it been working correctly. He had been seen carrying out “aggressive” overtakes ahead of the crash, with one driver reporting Hill’s passenger had rolled down the window, laughed and put his middle finger up as they sped past him.

Ms Pitman told the court how William and Alex saw Stephen’s Hyundai “jump in the air” and roll onto a grass verge after the crash, with dashcam footage from their vehicle showing them both running towards the car to try and get them out of it.

Mr Boyack ran back to his car to try and find a fire extinguisher and something he could smash the window with, returning with a claw hammer, and “knew his wife was dead” as soon as he saw her. Ms Pitman said: "While this was going on, William saw Mr Hill and his passenger watching but offered no help."

While Mrs Boyack died instantly in the crash, Stephen was taken to Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham and his loved ones were initially told he would survive his injuries, but he went into cardiac arrest and died shortly after.

Arjan Balla

An Albanian man has been jailed more than 17 years after he caused a severe brain injury that eventually killed his boss after he returned to the UK using a different name. Arjan Balla chased down and attacked businessman Anastassios Delis in 2006 at a building site in Queensway, Southampton.

According to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), Mr Delis struck his head on the concrete floor and never regained consciousness. Moments before the assault, Mr Delis had said that he feared that Balla was “going to kill” him. He was left in a permanent vegetative state until his death in 2017 aged 68.

A CPS spokesman said that Balla at the time was using the name Tahir Karaj and he pleaded guilty to a charge of grievous bodily harm. He was sentenced in 2007 to three years’ imprisonment, of which he served one year before he was deported to his native Albania. Following Mr Delis’ death, the CPS authorised the charge of manslaughter against Balla and inquiries led the prosecutors to uncover his real identity.

The spokesman explained: “The difficulty faced by the prosecution was that during Balla’s initial stay in the UK he was living under a false identity in order to obtain employment. Under the name Tahir Karaj, Balla hid his true identity from UK authorities throughout the initial criminal investigation, his imprisonment and ultimate deportation."

Balla pleaded to the manslaughter charge and was sentenced at Southampton Crown Court to 12 months’ imprisonment.

Karen Foster

No caption — Karen Foster admitted to killing a baby under her care (Image: Lancashire Police)

A heartbroken mother said the childminder who shook her baby boy to death is a “monster” who should be “haunted” by her actions. Karen Foster, 62, was also branded an “evil woman” for killing nine-month-old Harlow Collinge after taking on too many children to care for and losing her temper with the youngster, Preston Crown Court heard.

Relatives of the “happy, healthy” boy shouted, “Scumbag bitch” from the public gallery as Foster was jailed for 12 years and seven months. Grandmother and mother-of-two Foster, a registered childminder with Ofsted, had hugged Harlow’s mother, Gemma Collinge at the hospital but later tried to suggest Ms Collinge was responsible for the child’s collapse on March 1 2022.

Foster eventually took responsibility and pleaded guilty to manslaughter, admitting the “forceful shaking” of Harlow causing his death. Jailing her, Mr Justice Barry Cotter said that Foster, despite ill health and pain in her hip, chose to carry on looking after more children than she should have under Ofsted rules, and this contributed to her “loss of temper”.

Earlier, Anne Whyte KC, prosecuting, said Foster had been a childminder registered with Ofsted for nine years before Harlow’s death. But when she first registered in 2014, she did not say she was married and lived with her husband or that she sometimes sought help with childminding from other unregistered individuals, or that her health was poor.

In fact, Foster made two benefit claims for Personal Independence Payments in 2018 and 2022, claiming she felt constantly drowsy and tired, that sometimes she could barely move, or safely carry out daily living activities.

On March 1 2022, Foster was looking after two children aged four, and two more, including Harlow, under 12 months – breaking the rules of her registration with Ofsted. He was dropped off by Ms Collinge at about 11am but in the early afternoon Foster dialled 999 to say Harlow was not breathing, adding: “I think he’s choking, he’s had like a fit and he’s not breathing.” The truth began to emerge as scans were taken of the boy, showing significant injuries to his brain, associated with the shaking of a baby.

Mason Reynolds

A teenage neo-Nazi created a detailed plan to carry out a suicide bomb attack on a synagogue because he wanted “to make Jews afraid again”. Mason Reynolds, 19, from Brighton, was convicted at trial of possession of an article connected with the preparation of an act of terrorism against the synagogue in Hove, East Sussex.

He had also pleaded guilty to five counts of possessing material likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism, as well as five offences of sharing terrorist publications dating back to when he was aged 16. The defendant had shared right-wing videos and possessed bomb instruction manuals, Winchester Crown Court heard.

The court was told that Reynolds had annotated a Google street map and satellite image of the synagogue detailing “entry points and points to attack”. Naomi Parsons, prosecuting, said: “Whilst preparation is described as limited, it is not absent, for Mr Reynolds had a neo-Nazi mindset and he had prepared an extensive library of manuals, explosives manuals, gun-making manuals.”

She added: “There was the potential to endanger many lives, he included references to the days when the the synagogue would be busiest, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Passover.” Ms Parsons continued: “He had an entrenched and violent neo-Nazi mindset and had expressed an intention to commit terrorist acts – I wanna strap multiple pipe bombs to my chest and blow myself up in a synagogue. He knew that those he communicated with shared that mindset.”

Reynolds showed no emotion as he was given an extended sentence made up of eight years in custody with a five-year period on licence. The judge, Mrs Justice May, told him that she considered him as “dangerous” and added: “You intended to encourage terrorism, this was propaganda pure and simple.”

Yura Varybrus

A 17-year-old boy murdered a teenager on a crowded dancefloor at a summer party. Yura Varybrus will spend a minimum term of 16 years behind bars after stabbing Charlie Cosser three times in the chest at a private party attended by more than 100 people at a farmhouse in Warnham, West Sussex, on July 23 last year.

Sentencing Varybrus at Brighton Crown Court, Judge Christine Henson KC said: “Instead of what should have been an end of academic year celebration, Charlie was stabbed … on a crowded marquee dancefloor. The impact of the loss of Charlie to his family and friends is immeasurable.”

The judge added that while she accepted it was a “spontaneous” incident and it was not certain that Varybrus brought the knife to the party, it was however “a significant factor you knew the knife was available to you during the evening and you were in possession of it on the dancefloor”.

Varybrus stabbed Charlie, also 17, after a fight broke out between the two strangers and two other boys on the dancefloor when Varybrus and his friends were asked to leave the party after complaints about his behaviour towards a girl. While the knife has never been found, witnesses at the party said they saw Varybrus “drenched” in blood and heard him say, “I’ve stabbed someone” after the attack. A guest at the party also captured part of the violence on video as she began filming her friends dancing to the song Toxic by Britney Spears.

The trial heard how Charlie was seen lying in the grass and was initially believed to be intoxicated before blood was seen on his T-shirt and his friend realised he had been stabbed. He suffered a cardiac arrest on the way to hospital, with internal bleeding caused by a cut to his aorta, the main artery from the heart. The teenager, from Milford, Surrey, also known as “Cheeks”, died two days later.

Varybrus was found guilty of Charlie’s murder and having a bladed article following a trial. The youth, of West Sussex, did not give evidence in the trial but denied both charges.

Bardia Shojaeifard

An “outwardly normal” 15-year-old boy with a “worrying interest in knives” stabbed another teenager through the heart on the way home from school. Bardia Shojaeifard has been detained for life for killing Alfie Lewis, 15, who was stabbed to death “in full view” of pupils leaving a primary school in the Horsforth area of Leeds last November.

Shojaeifard, who was 14 at the time, will spend at least 13 years behind bars after being found guilty of Alfie’s murder. Leeds Crown Court heard that on the day of Alfie’s murder Shojaeifard took a 13cm-long kitchen knife from home with him to school, and carried it around in his trousers all day before attacking Alfie on his way home “in revenge” for an altercation a week earlier.

During the trial, prosecutor Craig Hassall KC said Alfie had been walking down the street to meet friends at the end of the school day when the defendant attacked him. He said witnesses recalled Alfie looking “surprised and shocked” and saying: “What are you doing?” as the incident unfolded close to St Margaret’s Primary School in Town Street, Horsforth, just before 3pm on November 7.

Mr Hassall said a post-mortem examination found that the fatal stab injury was a 14cm deep wound to Alfie’s chest which punctured his heart. He told the jury the defendant “then fled the scene, dropping the murder weapon in the road close to the primary school”.

The judge, Mr Justice Cotter, said people would be wondering how a young boy “from a loving and supportive family” could commit such an “extraordinary” crime “without forewarning or any warning signs save for some pictures of knives on his phone”. He told the court: “Outwardly Bardia was a normal 14-year-old boy with no interest in crime, albeit with a poor school disciplinary record."

The court heard Shojaeifard had a “worrying interest in knives” and police found several pictures on his phone of him holding them, including one where a blade had been photoshopped into his hand, and another taken on a family holiday to Iran. Alfie’s family said they were “disappointed” at Shojaeifard’s sentence, claiming it did not reflect the seriousness of his actions.

Edward Finn

An anaesthetist took inappropriate photographs of an adult and a child patient and had thousands of indecent images of children on his devices. Edward Finn, 35, from Cotgrave in Nottinghamshire, attempted to take his own life after his crimes were uncovered, the Crown Prosecution Service said.

The discovery of unsolicited sexual images on a disused tablet device led to a further examination, which revealed photos of an adult and a child that were known to him, and he was reported to Nottinghamshire Police. Further investigations into all of Finn’s devices revealed thousands of indecent images of children, including more than a hundred in the most serious category, and images of an adult and a child taken during the course of his work.

The adult victim could not be identified from the photograph but the child victim was identified, traced and their parents informed. When Finn’s offending came to light, he made an attempt to end his life before he was arrested and charged with 12 offences.

Finn pleaded guilty to nine offences at a hearing at Nottingham Crown Court in January and has now been sentenced to a total of eight years’ imprisonment, with an extended licence of four years and handed an indefinite sexual harm prevention order.

He was convicted of three counts of making indecent photographs of children, two counts of voyeurism, three counts of taking indecent photographs of a child and one count of sexual assault of a child. He pleaded not guilty to three other charges, one of sexual assault, one of theft and one of outraging public decency. Following consultation with those affected, they were left to lie on file.