court

A rogue builder from North Devon has been jailed for two years eight months for defrauding his customers out of approximately £38,000.

At Exeter Crown Court on Thursday, March 30, Samuel Harvey 32, of Greenbank Road, Barnstaple, was sentenced following a prosecution by Heart of the South West Trading Standards Service.

Previously, on January 31 at Barnstaple Magistrates...

A woman who lied about rent arrears of £1,700 has been prosecuted by Plymouth City Council for social housing fraud.

Katrina Sturtridge – aged 26, of Lower Polsham Road, Paignton, TQ3 2AU admitted to Plymouth Magistrates on Monday 20 February that she had lied to the Council on two occasions (on 10th September and 9 October 2014) in order to gain social housing, by falsely stating that...

A Devon pensioner has been fined £4,700 after amassing an illegal lifetime collection of hundreds of wild bird eggs.

William Beaton, 73, from Yelverton, appeared before Plymouth Magistrates’ Court yesterday [10 November] and admitted to stealing the eggs from around the UK, including Devon and Cornwall.

He pleaded guilty to five offences under the 1981 Wildlife and Countryside...

Two men have been sentenced following an affray at The Minerva Pub in Plymouth last November.

Stefan Adamson aged 28 from Stoke, Plymouth and Karl White aged 20 from St Judes Plymouth pleaded guilty to their involvement in the offence.

Both men have received 15 month Community Orders at Plymouth Crown Court on Friday 8th April and have also been given football banning orders...

South West Water has been ordered to pay over £300,000 in fines and costs after polluting a Devon watercourse in a case brought by the Environment Agency.

Plymouth Crown Court heard how a combination of equipment failure and poor management on the part of South West Water led to poorly treated sewage entering the Craddock stream, downstream from its Ashill Sewage Treatment Works, near...

A 15-year-old Plymouth boy has been charged with offences related to cyber attacks on websites around the world.

The 15-year-old, from the Plympton area of the city, was charged on Monday 16th November after an investigation by officers from the Zephyr Regional Cyber Crime Unit.

The boy was charged with three offences under Section 3 of the Computer Misuse Act which relate to...

South West Water has been fined £214,000 by Plymouth Crown Court for breaching environmental controls at the Camels Head sewage treatment works in Plymouth and failing to stop sewage pouring into the River Tamar.

This is the highest fine handed out to South West Water for a case brought by the Environment Agency.

The treatment plant at Camels Head serves a population of over...

A man has been jailed today in Plymouth Crown Court for breaching a child abduction warning notice.

Michael Rowe from Morice Street, Plymouth has been sentenced to 32 months in prison after breaching the order issued against him in March.

Rowe was issued with Child Abduction Warning Notice under the 1984 Child Abduction Act which prevented him from having contact with a local...

A Plymouth man has been found guilty of a number of historic child abuse charges at Plymouth Crown Court on Friday (25th September).

Hinton Sheryn was found guilty of 18 counts of indecent assault and gross indecency with children dating back to the 1970s and 80s; one of Sheryn’s victims was as young as six at the time of the abuse.

Sheryn is already serving time in prison...

An Exeter man has been sentenced at Plymouth magistrates after illegally subletting his Local authority council flat when he was living somewhere else.

David Mukanirwa, 31, of Darwin Court was prosecuted under S1(2) of the prevention of Social Housing Fraud Act 2013 for subletting his Exeter flat on two occasions whilst he lived in Swindon after advertising it for rent on Gumtree....