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Manipulative bully, student killer and predatory cop amongst those jailed in Greater Manchester this week
A manipulative bully who vowed his ex-girlfriend would be the ‘next Katie Piper’ is amongst those who have been jailed in Greater Manchester this week.
Also locked up this week was the teenage kille, who stabbed student Luke O’Connor to death in Fallowfield last year. In a heart-wrenching statement, Luke’s parents asked ‘how many more parents have to go through the pain and heartache that knife crime brings?’
Prison sentences are handed down to the worst offenders each week at our region’s courts. The M.E.N. has dedicated court reporters on hand to cover the most serious cases, which you can read below:
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Manipulative bully vowed former partner would be the ‘next Katie Piper’ following ‘toxic’ relationship
A manipulative bully vowed his partner would be the ‘next Katie Piper’ following years of vile abuse. Luke Coleman, 28, and the woman had been in a relationship for a number of years which was ‘characterised’ by physical and emotional abuse.
Coleman was possessive, constantly accused her of cheating on him and regularly assaulted her.
Over a two year period, there were 31 separate callouts to the police reporting violence or threats of violence, Manchester Crown Court heard.
Prosecutor Gwen Henshaw described how between October 2020 and April 2022, Coleman was abusive and controlling towards the woman.
Reading from the woman’s statement, she said: “He said I would look like Katie Piper. I later realised that she was the victim of an acid attack.”
“He had threatened to throw acid on her face,” the prosecutor said.
Coleman, of Banner Street, Ince, was jailed for three-and-a-half years, for three offences of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and engaging in controlling and coercive behaviour. He was also banned from contacting his ex and her family indefinitely.
“How many more parents, families and friends have to go through the pain and heartache that knife crime brings?”
The father of a student brutally stabbed to death by a ‘coward’ armed with a 13-inch ‘mafia stiletto’ weapon has called for a crackdown on knife crime. Jason O’Connor said the 15 year sentence handed to his son’s killer ‘does not reflect the magnitude of the crime’.
Luke O’Connor, a second year business management at Manchester Metropolitan University, was just 19 when he was knifed eight times by Shiloh Pottinger in Fallowfield. Manchester Crown Court heard that Luke, originally from Bedford, had been out with friends for a Halloween party in October last year before bumping into Pottinger, a music production student at BIMM music university. The pair were total strangers.
Luke’s friend made a ‘jocular’ comment about Pottinger having a skateboard, as their paths crossed. A confrontation followed and Pottinger, then 19 and now 20, produced the flick knife he’d been carrying, which he’d bought from China.
He stabbed Luke repeatedly then fled, leaving him to die. When he went on trial accused of murder, Pottinger told ‘many lies’ and tried to blame Luke, claiming he was acting in self defence.
But sentencing judge Nicholas Dean KC labelled Pottinger’s reaction as ‘pathetic’, saying his behaviour suggested ‘arrogance’. Pottinger later said he had bought the knife as ‘a sort of fashion statement’.
Pottinger was sentenced to 15 years in prison, after being found not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter.
Man killed 61-year-old dad after pushing him over outside pub just three days before Christmas
A man killed a 61-year-old dad after pushing him over outside a pub in Wigan just three days before Christmas. Carl Sinclair, 58, assaulted Roy Halliwell on December 22 last year after he had been seen ‘nonsensically shouting’ at him and ‘making threats’.
Sinclair then followed Halliwell to a pub on Wallgate, where he violently pushed him to the ground, causing Roy to hit his head before leaving him lying in the street. Roy was taken to hospital but died a week later from his injuries.
Greater Manchester Police began investigating the incident and, after interviewing a number of witnesses at the scene, officers quickly identified Sinclair as the suspect.
He was initially arrested at home on suspicion of an assault occasioning actual bodily harm. He was then later re-arrested, charged with manslaughter and remanded into custody whilst awaiting trial.
The 58-year-old of Cemetery Road in Ince, appeared at Bolton Crown Court via live link from HMP Forest Bank for sentencing, after he pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to charges of manslaughter. He has been jailed for five years and six months.
Predatory police cadet leader jailed after using training scheme as ‘grooming playground’
A former Greater Manchester Police constable who sexually assaulted teenagers he was training for his own ‘sexual gratification’ has been jailed.
Adnan Ali has been sentenced to five years in jail for misconduct in a public office and five sexual assaults on a 16-year-old boy and two young girls. The assaults and misconduct took place between 2015 and 2018 while he was serving with GMP’s Volunteer Police Cadet Scheme.
A trial at Liverpool Crown Court heard that the 36-year-old father, from Old Trafford, used the training scheme as a ‘grooming playground’ and ‘exploited the freedom he was given.’ On June 23 (Friday), he was jailed for five years.
The sexual assaults involved touching a girl cadet inappropriately while giving her a lift home and kissing another in his room while they were away at a camp. The boy had his shoulders rubbed by Ali before his genitals were touched over his clothing while they were together in an apprenticeship office.
Ali, of Leighton Road, also sent hundreds of inappropriate messages per day to young people in his care as well as ‘highly inappropriate’ photographs, before encouraging them to be sent in return. One sickening text message included: “Just lay in bed… wish u were here xx” and another said: “Wish you were in the bath with me.”
Ali was arrested in October 2018 after the force received a complaint that he had been ‘behaving inappropriately’ towards a 16-year-old boy. His devices were seized and analysed and officers found thousands of messages and identified more victims.
‘You need to sort your life out…’ drug addict thief branded ‘lowest of the low’ stole parcels from city centre apartment blocks
A drug addled thief branded the ‘lowest of the low’ by one of his victims has been told to ‘sort his life out’. Craig Darcey, 32, snuck into Manchester city centre apartment blocks and stole parcels, striking on seven occasions during a month-long spree.
One of the parcels, stolen from an apartment block off Ducie Street in the Northern Quarter, contained medication. “Taking my wife’s medication is the lowest of the low,” the victim’s husband said.
Darcey, who was homeless and addicted to drugs at the time, pleaded guilty to seven counts of theft. Sentencing, Judge Nicholas Dean KC told him: “You need to sort your life out. I hope you understand that, but it is in your hands to do so.”
Manchester Crown Court heard that some of the other parcels stolen by Darcey between January and February this year included important documents from HM Revenue and Customs, personal letters and coronavirus testing kits.
Darcey, of no fixed address, was sentenced to nine months in prison. Given that he has been in custody since February, he is expected to be released ‘immediately or very soon’.
