What happened in the district's courts this week

A 30-day order has been placed on Joseph Charlotte after police received a phone call requesting assistance on August 4. When police attended Charlotte had already vacated the premises in Carlisle.

He had, PC 2523 Dawson told the court, been making threats to a woman. The woman in question believed he was capable of carrying out the threats.

A further call was received on August 28, again asking for police assistance. When confronted, he also threatened officers with violence.

During a police interview he answered “no comment” to all questions.

PC Dawson said the force had been called out to eight domestic incidents against Charlotte.

She said he had “used violence on a number of occasions.”

A 28-day domestic violence protection order was imposed on Charlotte, of no fixed address, which prevents him from molesting the woman in question.

A DRINK driving motorist has been banned from the road for three years.

Emma Jayne Halligan admitted driving a Range Rover on the M6 in Carlisle on June 23 while over the legal limit for alcohol.

Diane Jackson, prosecuting, said: “At 5.10am an officer on patrol was drawn to the attention of a white Range Rover driven by the defendant.” Police then tracked the 34-year-old before pulling her over due to her driving after she initially tried to get away.

Tests by officers found she had 81 micrograms of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood. The legal limit is 35 micrograms. Halligan appeared before Carlisle’s magistrates’ court on Tuesday.

Mark Shepherd, defending, said: “The question is whether the alcohol is a symptom of her ongoing mental health condition or alcohol is causing the problems she has. She certainly describes herself as vulnerable and suffers from anxiety, depression and psychosis.”

She also admitted driving without a valid licence or insurance and failing to stop. At the time she was subject to a conditional discharge.

Mr Shepherd said Halligan, of Whitefield Road, Bury, panicked when she saw police. She was fined £200, told to pay a £35 victim surcharge and £85 in costs.

A WOMAN has been fined after she assaulted an officer.

Teresa Marie O'Neill, 48, of St James Court, Whitehaven, appeared at the magistrates court in Workington on Friday.

She admitted assaulting a female police constable by beating her while she was carrying out her duties.

The court heard the incident happened on April 22.

O'Neill was handed a community order with a requirement to attend up to 20 days of Rehabilitation Activity Requirement. She was also fined £120 and ordered to pay £50 compensation to her victim.

She must pay £85 court costs and £95 victim surcharge.

A west Cumbrian man was fined after he admitted assaulting a woman and resisting a female police constable.

Jordan Alan Starkey, of Overend Road in Whitehaven, appeared at the magistrates’ court in Workington on Friday.

The 28-year-old man pleaded guilty to the offence of resisting the constable while she was carrying out her duty, contrary to Section 89(2) of the Police Act 1996.

He also admitted assaulting a woman by beating her, contrary to section 39 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988.

The court heard that both offences happened during an incident which occurred on August 2 at Thornhill.

Magistrates sitting at the Workington court handed Starkey a £80 fine for resisting the police officer.

He was handed a further £120 for the assault on the woman and was ordered to pay her £50 compensation.

Starkey was told by magistrates he must pay £85 prosecution costs and a £34 surcharge to fund victim services.

The court agreed he could pay the £369 he owes the co

AN ELDERLY motorist who knocked down a schoolgirl on a pedestrian crossing, left the scene after checking on her before police arrived, because he felt he was not needed.

The teenager waited for the traffic lights to turn to red before she stepped on to the Wigton Road crossing - but in a split second she was knocked to the ground by the pensioner’s car, the city’s magistrates’ court heard.

Thomas McGlade, 74, admitted driving without due care and attention and failing to report the accident.

Diane Jackson, prosecuting, said the girl had immediately gone to the crossing after getting off her school bus on her way home on January 27.

“I always look to see if the lights have changed,” she later told police.

When that had happened, she stepped on to the crossing, said the prosecutor.

“But within a split second I was on the floor,” she said.

The collision left her with an injured ankle. The girl said: “I didn’t see the car. I was in so much shock it took me a while to gather my thoughts.”

She recalled the driver getting out of his car, talking, and then leaving in his car.

A passing ambulance also stopped, and the paramedics carried the girl into her home nearby. McGlade later told police that he had stopped after realising he had hit somebody but then left because she seemed okay.

“He said he felt he wasn’t needed and that his wife was unwell,” added Mrs Jackson.

The defendant’s lawyer John Smith told the court that McGlade had no previous convictions and being before the court was a source of embarrassment.

He said McGlade, from the access road to Red Hall Farm, Wigton, had sensibly stopped at the scene and spoken to the victim, who assured him she was okay.

“He didn’t provide his details because he didn’t realised it was required,” added the lawyer.

District Judge John Temperley imposed a £150 fine for each offence and imposed eight points on McGlade’s licence.

He ordered that the pensioner should pay the girl £100 compensation.

A PERVERTED Workington man has been given a suspended jail sentence after police found hundreds of child abuse images on his phone – including some that involved babies.

Jordan Laybourne, 20, admitted three offences when he appeared before at judge at Carlisle Crown Court.

Prosecutor Gerard Rogerson said police discovered the images when they visited the defendant’s home address at Honister Drive, Workington, on January 23. They seized his iPhone.

When officers examined it, they found that it had been used to look at 684 images of children being abused – 194 of those pictures being classified as Category A, depicting the most sickening kinds of child abuse.

The defendant admitted three offences, covering the three categories of indecent abuse images that were found on his phone.

Laybourne refused to answer any questions when he was interviewed. Mr Rogerson said: “A large number of the images featured especially young children – between birth and one year old.”

Laybourne has no previous convictions.

Judith McCullough, for Laybourne, said his behaviour was influenced by a relationship break-up, and a use of drugs and alcohol. Judge Jeremy Lasker said the offences deserved jail.

But he suspended the nine month term he imposed so that the defendant can benefit from working with the Probation Service. In the next two years, Laybourne must complete 15 rehabilitation days and sexual offending programme.

He will be on he Sex Offenders Register for a decade. He is also barred from working with children and will be the subject of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order for the next 10 years.

A 25-YEAR-old Carlisle man accused with four other people of murder has been told he will be asked to enter his plea on October 12.

At the city's crown court today, Arron Graham made a brief appearance via a video link from Durham Prison, where he is being held.

He is charged with murdering 26-year-old Lee McKnight, whose death triggered a major investigation.

Mr McKnight's body was discovered in the River Caldew near to Cummersdale, south of Carlisle, on July 24.

Graham has also been charged with assisting an offender.

Judge Robert Altham told Graham, of Blackwell Road, Currock, Carlisle, that his defence barrister Fraser Livesey would be in position to speak to him and take instructions in time for that hearing on October 12 when all of those accused of the murder will appear in court.

The other defendants accused of involvement have already appeared in court on earlier occasions.

They are Jamie Andrew Davidson, 25, of Beverly Rise; Carol Edgar, 46, of Charles Street; Coral Breanne Edgar, 25, of Charles Street; and Paul Andrew Roberts, 50, of Grey Street, all Carlisle. Detectives were this week still appealing for information about the tragedy.

They urged anybody who can help their investigation to get in touch.

“No matter how insignificant you may deem your information, we would like to hear from you,” said Detective Superintendent David Stalker.

Call 101 if you can help or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

A VIOLENT west Cumbrian man has been jailed after passers-by saw him subject his former girlfriend to a brutal assault after pulling her into a car by her hair.

The horrified witness saw Mark Little, 25, sitting in a car on a Maryport street, angrily shouting at the woman and punching the interior of the vehicle, prosecutor Diane Jackson told Carlisle’s Rickergate Magistrates’ Court.

“He [the witness] could not hear what the defendant was saying but he was very angry,” said Mrs Jackson.

“The witness saw a female in the back passenger seat trying to open the door but it was slammed shut. He could see her head being slammed against the passenger window several times.”

The man said he could hear the woman screaming from inside the car. The defendant was so violent the witness worried for the woman’s safety.

Mrs Jackson continued: “She got out of the car but the [the defendant] lunged from the back passenger door and grabbed her by the hair, pulling her back into the car.”

The concerned witness then followed the car in which the defendant was being carried, driving around the town going through both James Street and Irish Street. All the while, he could see the defendant moving around “aggressively” in the back of the car.

He relayed this information to police in a phone call.

When officers intervened, the victim initially denied being who she was. She did this for “fear of reprisals,” said Mrs Jackson, pointing out that the woman had not formally complained.

The court heard that Little, who is of no fixed address, had a history of domestic violence, his victims having included both the woman and his grandmother.

Sean Harkin, for Little, who admitted a common assault and breaching a restraining order, said it could not be said the victim was “extremely distressed”. The lawyer told District Judge John Temperley: “You may want want to look at a sentence which helps him rather than punishes him.

“Prison doesn’t really work for this defendant.”

The District judge jailed Little for 14 weeks, telling him: “You have committed a sustained assault on your former partner and she was, in my view, in a vulnerable position in the confined space at the back of that vehicle.”

A DRIVER has been banned for two years and has been given a suspended jail sentence for driving while over the legal limit for cocaine.

Lewis James Brown, 19, drove a white Ford Transit on the A66 at Embleton while he had more than than twice the legal limit for cocaine in his blood.

Tests showed he had 22 micrograms. The legal limit is 10 micrograms. On the same day he was also driving while disqualified and without insurance.

He faced further charges of driving without insurance and driving while disqualified on March 23 on Crow Park Road in Keswick.

For the offences on March 23, Brown, of Field View in Flimby, was jailed for eight weeks, suspended for 18 months.

Brown was jailed for 10 weeks, again suspended for 18 months, for the offences on February 28. These are to run concurrently to the other sentence. He was also told to pay a £122 victim surcharge and £85 in costs.

He appeared before Workington’s magistrates’ court on Wednesday and admitted all of the offences.

A woman was punched to the floor and then kicked in the head after an argument outside a town centre pub.

Anna Sewell was leaving The Warehouse bar, on Burrowgate in Penrith, shortly after 12am on October 26 last year when an argument broke out.

Insults were hurled by both Mrs Sewell and Siobhan Graham, who the court heard didn’t see eye-to-eye at school.

Graham, 34, then punched Mrs Sewell to the left eye which knocked her to the ground. As onlookers pulled back Graham, she kicked the victim in the head.

“The next thing I remember was being pulled up by someone,” said Diane Jackson, reading a statement on behalf of the victim.

A friend then guided her to a nearby taxi rank.

“I was such a state that people let me jump the queue,” continued the statement.

“I got in and I was crying and in a lot of pain.”

Mrs Jackson described the attack as a “repeated assault” and said Graham, of Pategill Park in Penrith, had no previous convictions.

Steven Marsh, defending, said his client was “a single parent with two children aged 10 and 16” and that “drink was involved on both parts”.

“She doesn’t normally drink, she doesn’t go out very often on social occasions, but she did as it was the birthday of one of her party,” he told the court. “It is accepted by both parties that it was a chance meeting and that they knew each other and hadn’t got on. Mrs Sewell was walking away when the defendant shouted abuse.

“The defendant says she was subjected to abuse. My client goes back into the pub and the victim comes after her and gets hold of her.”

Mr Marsh said his client rejected the prosecution claim that it was a “repeated assault”.

“Mrs Sewell had hold of her throat and she responded by punching her. Mrs Sewell falls over and there is the kick. The defendant is restrained so it isn’t full force, it is the swing of a leg towards the victim.” Mr Marsh said the injuries suffered were “very minor”.

District Judge John Temperley told the defendant: “You are a mum of two children, 10 and 16. I don’t know what you are doing in the dock at this stage of your life.”

She was given an eight-week curfew, was told to pay £85 in costs, £200 in compensation and a £90 victim surcharge

A West Cumbrian man has been banned from the roads after he admitted drug-driving.

David Henry Burns, of Cambridge Road in Hensingham, Whitehaven, appeared at the magistrates court in Workington on Friday.

The 42-year-old admitted driving a silver Kia Cerato on Solway Road in Workington when he had a controlled drug in his system.

The court heard that Burns had 306ugl of benzoylecgonine in his blood - the legal limit being 50ugl.

The incident happened on September 14.

Burns was disqualified from holding or obtaining a driving licence for 12 months.

The disqualification is obligatory for this type of offence, according to the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988.

He must also pay a £120 fine, as well as £85 prosecution costs and £32 to fund victims services.

Burns was given time to pay the £237 he owes the court until October 2.