It was a quieter week than usual at Swindon Crown Court due to the coronavirus pandemic halting all but urgent business. Four men were sentenced.
Dealer concerned about coronavirus pandemic
A drug runner who went on the run for almost two years is being held in his cell 24/7 and told a court he was concerned for his health - after other prisoners at HMP Pentonville tested positive for coronavirus.
Mohamed Guetfi, 28, handed himself in to police late last year 22 months after he failed to appear before Swindon Crown Court to answer charges of being concerned in the supply of heroin and crack cocaine.
The Londoner had been arrested in November 2016 after police spotted him emerge from a house on Eastcott Hill.
He was jailed for three-and-a-half years at Swindon Crown Court on Thursday.
Rapist who also set fire to a haybarn is jailed
A rapist phoned police and confessed to molesting a primary school girl when he was in his early teens.
Liam Jones, 24, also admitted using a lighter and deodorant can to set fire to a barn in 2015. Hay worth £7,000 was destroyed in the blaze and the barn had to be rebuilt.
Fire crews at the barn blaze in Upton Scudamore in 2015 Picture: TREVOR PORTER
The south Wiltshire man was jailed for five years yesterday when he appeared before Swindon Crown Court via video link from HMP Bullingdon.
Prosecutor Rob Welling said Jones called Wiltshire Police’s non-emergency 101 number in June 2018. “It seems he’d hit a very low point and wanted to confess things that had been weighing on his mind.”
Jones was jailed for five years on Thursday. You can read what the NSPCC had to say about the sentence.
Repeat offender was seen retrieving drugs from guttering
A drug dealer who kept thousands of pounds-worth of drugs in the guttering has been hailed more than five-and-a-half years.
Malaki Wilson, 37, was spotted by police leaning out of the bedroom window of a house on Tilshead Walk, Penhill. The officers were there to check on the occupants of the terraced home, as they were concerned the couple had been cuckooed by dealers.
When officers raided the home they found one of the occupants of the house injecting herself with drugs and London native Wilson, who has three previous drugs supply convictions, gloved and bagging up drugs in the bedroom.
He was jailed for five years and eight months at the end of last week.
Eight months for blade
Ernestas Barktus, 23, of The Croft, Trowbridge, pleaded guilty to possession of a knife in the town centre.
The Lithuanian national was sentenced to eight months imprisonment on Tuesday.
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