Latest Offenders

Description

A sex offender caught with nearly 1,200 indecent images of children aged as young as five was today spared jail following what a judge described as an ‘unjust delay’ by police in Sheffield.

Toni Prince, of Infirmary Road, Upperthorpe, downloaded 1,191 indecent images of children, including some of children being raped.

Police also found an ‘extremely unsettling' handwritten table in her bedside drawer, which contained words including ‘rape’ and ‘torture’, when they raided the 55-year-old’s home.

Prince, whose legal forename is Anthony but who identifies as a woman and goes by the name Toni, admitted her crimes after being arrested on June 14, 2016.

Sentencing her today, Judge Peter Kelson QC described it as a 'very serious case’ and voiced his concerns over the delay in bringing her to justice, which he said police accepted was ‘entirely’ their fault.

“When there has been, as there clearly has been here, an unjust delay which is not in any way, shape or form your fault, I’m bound by the law to take it into account, and I do so,” he told the defendant.

He sentenced Prince to six months imprisonment, suspended for one year, meaning she will not be jailed unless she commits a further offence during the next 12 months.

She was also made the subject of a 10-year sexual harm prevention order and given a 34-day rehabilitation activity requirement.

Prince had previously admitted making indecent images of children, possessing prohibited images of children, and possessing extreme pornographic images. In legal terms ‘making’ images can refer to downloading them, which is what she had done.

In total, she downloaded 108 images classed as category A, which is the most serious; 90 falling into category B; and 993 category C ones.

She also downloaded 53 images of ‘extreme pornography’ and 337 prohibited images of children, which the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) defines as ‘non-photographic’ images including ‘cartoons, manga and drawings’. 

The court heard how South Yorkshire Police first submitted a file to the CPS on August 5, 2016 but officers were asked to provide details of the content found on the devices seized from Prince’s home.

Despite being chased by the CPS, it was another two years before police eventually resubmitted the file with this additional evidence on August 15, 2018, and Prince eventually appeared in court for the first time on April 16 this year.

Ian Goldsack, defending, told how Prince had been a victim of childhood abuse.

He said she had made ‘significant’ strides since being arrested, by voluntarily attending many hours of counselling in an attempt to address the problems which led to her accessing child pornography.

Judge Kelson read a statement from the counsellor who had seen Prince, who described her as the ‘most vulnerable client we have worked with in terms of the effect of her early trauma on her mental and physical health’ but added that she was also the most ‘committed’ to addressing her problems.

Mr Goldsack told how the University of Sheffield, where Prince was studying for a PhD, had been informed of the investigation following Prince’s arrest. When the university asked police for an update last year, he said it was wrongly informed that no charges were being brought and it passed this information on to Prince.

Gurdial Singh, prosecuting, said the delay was ‘down to negligence to put it bluntly’ on the part of those investigating.

Description

A lodger who raped and murdered a 13-year-old girl to stop her exposing him as an abuser has been jailed for life. Stephen Nicholson, 25, stabbed Lucy McHugh 27 times at Southampton Outdoor Sports Centre last July. He was found guilty of murder and three charges of raping Lucy after a trial at Winchester Crown Court and was ordered to spend at least 33 years in jail. Judge Mrs Justice May said Lucy had "unknown promise, cruelly obliterated" and described Nicholson as "depraved". The judge told Nicholson: "This was a pitiless attack on a child following months of sexual exploitation. "The prosecution has described it as an execution and I am satisfied this is correct. "The combination of [Nicholson's] cold narcissism and hot anger dictated that she had to be put out of the way and he saw to it that this was done." The trial heard Nicholson first raped Lucy, then aged 12, in May 2017 while living at her home, and on two further occasions over the following week. Mrs Justice May said Lucy had been "vulnerable, easy prey to someone satisfying his own appetites". She said Nicholson "encouraged and cynically exploited" Lucy's "crush" on him after he had moved into the family house, and called him "utterly selfish and depraved". Nicholson had later decided Lucy had "become a serious object to his comfortable life and there was a real threat of her outing him as a paedophile". The judge said teachers had "done the right thing" in raising concerns to social services but no action was taken. She added: "The [social services] team had investigated and had found nothing to concern them. The obvious question is, 'how could social services have arrived at that conclusion, not once but twice?'". Southampton City Council declined to comment due to an ongoing serious case review into the reports made to its social services department. The review is expected to be completed by the end of the year. Nicholson was also found guilty of sexual activity with another girl, aged 14, in 2012.

Children's home hostage

Victim impact statements from Lucy's mother and father were submitted to the court. The court heard Nicholson had previously been detained in 2009 for taking staff and residents of a Southampton children's home hostage, when he was aged 14. Prosecutor William Mousley QC told the court that while he was a resident of the home - under the influence of amphetamines - Nicholson threatened staff with a knife. He then locked them and other children in a room, before stealing £1,000 in cash and making off in a staff member's car. He was also later convicted of affray and damaging property after he barricaded himself in a room and threatened staff at a young offenders centre. Nicholson recorded a music video in 2012 as part of a music rehabilitation project after being released from prison that year, in which he rapped about turning his life around, having previously not cared about who he hurt. Defence barrister James Newton-Price QC said Nicholson had a "difficult" upbringing, having been placed in a children's home from the age of 13. Jurors heard Nicholson moved into the family home after being invited by long-time friend Richard Elmes, the partner of Lucy's mother Stacey White. The trial heard Lucy would later describe Nicholson to friends as her "boyfriend". Nicholson told police Lucy sent him a message the night before her murder, saying she was pregnant. After luring her to woodland nearby, he stabbed her 27 times, including 11 in the neck, in what prosecutors described as an "'execution-style" murder. It was later found Lucy was not pregnant. Nicholson was linked to the murder via DNA evidence found on clothing discarded in woodland about a mile from the murder scene. He was also convicted of sexual activity with a 14-year-old girl in 2012, who he had taken to the same woodland where Lucy was found dead years later. Nicholson was cleared of one count of sexual activity with a child which related to Lucy after she had turned 13.