Pensioner in Court for Making Hundreds of Malicious Emergency Calls

A Tyneside pensioner has appeared in court for a second time after making a further 420 malicious emergency calls.

Lena Taylor, 90, of Churchill Street, Wallsend, was convicted in July of making hundreds of abusive phone calls to the emergency services.

Back then the court heard how Taylor had branded ambulance service staff "wankers" and "bastards" after making various threats to self-harm and burn her own house down.

District Judge Bernard Begley imposed a two year conditional discharge and warned Taylor that she faced a stint behind bars if she persisted in making the calls. She replied: "I don't care one little bit".

To further illustrate her defiance, the firebrand granny has just appeared back before the same court having repeated her earlier crimes.

The bench heard that Taylor had made more than 400 new calls to the North East Ambulance Service via the 999 system, with a further 100 new calls being made via the non-emergency NHS 111 number. All of the calls were made in the six week period between 14th July and 30th August.

Prosecutor Bethany Jendrzejewski told that court that Taylor's calls were putting a great strain on the already stretched resources of the ambulance service.

She added: "Mrs Taylor's telephone calls are aggressive in nature and trust staff are repeatedly being abused, insulted and sworn at. And this is causing distress to staff.

"In one call, from 22nd July, at 11.27 am, she said 'I've done my dinner, I need someone to take me to bingo to keep me calm. Stop fucking messing around with me. I'm not going to sit in this house all day'."

During one of Taylor's outbursts a genuine emergency call about a baby that had stopped breathing was placed in a queue.

Mark Harrison, representing Taylor, said: "She had not committed any offence prior to her 90th birthday.

"However one looks at Mrs Taylor, whether you take a sympathetic view or that she is a nuisance, it's a matter of huge sadness that a lady of her age, free from convictions until after her 90th birthday, now places herself at risk of a criminal behaviour order or imprisonment.

"This requires not the criminal justice system but the care system."

The bench ordered a pre-sentence report and adjourned sentence until 2nd November.

Ordinarily an offence of this nature would attract at least a high level community order. The fact that Taylor went out and breached her conditional discharge almost immediately tips this towards a custodial sentence, but any bench will be loathe to do that with such an elderly defendant who clearly has issues.

We shall see what 2nd November brings.

Cocaine Snorting Berkshire Man Loses Driving Licence and University Place

A Berkshire man has lost his driving licence by getting behind the wheel after snorting cocaine.

Berke Ersoy, 21, of Whychelm Road, Reading, admitted one charge of driving when the concentration of a specified drug - namely the cocaine metabolite benzoylecgonine (BZE) - was above the specified limit - namely 50 microgrammes per litre of blood - when he appeared at Colchester Magistrates' Court on Tuesday, 16th October 2018.

This is an offence contrary to section 5A of the Road Traffic Act 1988. It has a maximum penalty of 6 months' custody and/or an unlimited fine on summary conviction.

The aptly-named criminal was kicked out of Essex University after receiving convictions for assault by beating and a public order offence.

He had returned to Colchester to see his old university friends when he wrote off his BMW by colliding with a car parked in the town's Greenstead Road.

Police attended the incident and, having cause to believe Ersoy was under the influence of alcohol, required him to undertake a roadside breath test. That test proved negative, so he was arrested on suspicion of driving whilst unfit through drugs.

Subsequent investigations revealed that Ersoy had almost eight times the prescribed limit of BZE in his blood.

Caroline Woodley, mitigating, said her client had snorted cocaine the morning of the crash and did not realise he would still be impaired.

She said: "At one stage he was a student at Essex University but as a result of his convictions he was asked to leave.

"He came to stay with a friend over the summer for 12 days and used cocaine socially. He is not an addict in an way.

"It was the morning of the day of the crash when he had taken the drugs and he tested positive 12 hours later.

"He was driving along and it was a momentary lapse of concentration which led to him striking the parked vehicle.

"It then shunted along and hit several more.

"Thankfully, nobody was injured.

"He was surprised the level was so high in his system but it is not like alcohol which wears off over time - it depends on how quickly your body breaks it down."

Magistrates fined Ersoy £440 and disqualified him from driving for 18 months.

He was also ordered to pay £85 towards prosecution costs and £44 victim surcharge.

Update (15/08/20): We have just been informed that Berke Ersoy has started the "koleeberks" YouTube channel where he likes to make a nuisance of himself towards police officers.

Update (03/05/21): We have been contacted by a member of the "Koleeberks Management Team" who has asked us to remove this article because: "He (Ersoy) has since changed and this is hurting his image to this day." Suffice to say, the request was declined.

Update (10/05/23): Despite earlier claims that "he's changed", it would appear that Erksoy still has criminogenic traits. He has been sentenced to 37 months' imprisonment for assault causing actual bodily harm and witness intimidation. The thug beat up his then-girlfriend and put the frighteners on her before court. He'll not be out making a nuisance of himself for the foreseeable future.

New Suspended Sentence Order Breach Guidelines

New Sentencing Guidelines come into force on 1st October 2018, which require courts to deal more severely with breaches to suspended sentence orders (SSOs).

A custodial sentence can be imposed by the court when the defendant is convicted of an offence "so serious that neither a fine alone nor a community sentence can be justified for the offence". In certain circumstances the court might choose to suspend that sentence for a period of up to 2 years as an alternative to sending the defendant directly to custody.

The court can also attach certain requirements to an SSO, such as imposing a curfew, unpaid work requirement or being subject to a rehabilitation activity requirement (RAR). You can read a full list of RARs available to the court in our earlier article on types of sentence.

The Sentencing Council's definitive guideline "Imposition of Community and Custodial Sentences" contains information about the circumstances in which it might be appropriate to suspend a custodial sentence.

Generally speaking, the following factors indicate that it might not be appropriate to suspend a custodial sentence (e.g. it might be more appropriate to impose an immediate custodial sentence):

• The offender presents a risk/danger to the public;
• Appropriate punishment can only be achieved by immediate custody;
• The offender has a history of poor compliance with court orders.

The following factors might indicate that it is appropriate to suspend a custodial sentence:

• The offender has a realistic prospect of rehabilitation;
• The offender has strong personal mitigation;
• Immediate custody will result in significant harmful impact upon others.

If a defendant breaches an SSO, the starting point is to activate that sentence and commit him/her into custody unless it would be unjust to do so. For example, if a defendant has stayed out of trouble for 360 days of a 12 month suspended sentence for theft it would be unjust to commit him/her to custody if they were then caught speeding.

The system, as it stands, doesn't work all that effectively. It is not uncommon for a person breaching an SSO to avoid activation of that sentence, even when the breach offences are similar to the original. Alarmingly, those who breach an SSO twice (or more) can also avoid activation of the sentence.

I was in court not all that long ago when I heard a Legal Advisor musing over the fact that a lay Bench had failed to activate the suspended sentence of a third-time breacher, whereas if he'd appeared before the District Judge in the court next door "his feet wouldn't have touched the ground the second time". Such sentencing decisions bring into question credibility of the judicial system.

With effect from 1st October 2018 courts across England and Wales will be subject to new Sentencing Guidelines that make the imprisonment of those breaching an SSO much more likely. These are shown below:

Those that fail to comply with the requirements of an SSO - e.g. failure to attend probation meetings or unpaid work etc - can also expect to face activation of that sentence as a starting point.

A court can only consider new and exceptional circumstances not present at the time the original order was imposed, when deciding that it would be unjust to activate the sentence.

If the court does decide that activation would be unjust, then it must apply one of these three options:

• Impose a fine not exceeding £2,500; OR
• Extend the operational period (to a maximum of 2 years from the date of the original sentence); OR
• If the SSO imposes community requirements, do one or more of the following:
• Impose more onerous community requirements;
• Extend the supervision period (to a maximum of 2 years from the date of the original sentence);
• Extend the operational period (to a maximum of 2 years from the date of the original sentence).

Stockton Pair Jailed for Horse Cruelty

Apparently those convicted at Teesside Magistrates Court are much less likely to receive a custodial sentence than those convicted at Magistrates' Courts elsewhere in England or Wales.

That statistic didn't hold true for a Stockton pair convicted of animal cruelty, when Teesside Magistrates took the very unusual step of jailing them for their crimes.

Courtney Marie Layton, 19, and Ian David Tait, 45, appeared in court yesterday having previously pleaded guilty to charges of neglecting horses contrary to section 4 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006.

Ian David Tait and Courtney Layton arrive at court.

The court heard how RSPCA inspectors had visited the pair's shared Port Clarence allotment on Easter Sunday and found four horses living in horrendous conditions.

Thankfully, the horses, named Dinky, Harley, Little Man and Blaze - are all now fighting fit and healthy after being taken in by the RSPCA.

John Ellwood, prosecuting for the RSPCA, told the court: "The RSPCA were called to the Victoria Terrace allotments where they found four horses in dreadful conditions.

"Two belonged to Courtney Layton and the others belonged to Ian Tait, who also owned the allotment.

"One horse box had no wheels and one horse, Blaze, was lying in the mud and was making no effort to stand up.

"He was starving and his spine, ribs and shoulders could be seen.

"A member of the public had seen a distressed pony and called the RSPCA - they arrived on Easter Sunday.

"A pony had collapsed and a member of the public had been feeding it.

"Dinky was barricaded in a horse box that was too small and covered in faeces.

"Harley, who had lice, and Little Man were left loose in the allotment in extremely poor conditions."

Tait's putrid Port Clarence allotment.

The court heard how Tait, the owner of Dinky and Harley, had become abusive when interviewed by RSPCA inspectors, claiming he had been "set up".

Liz McGowan, defending, told the court that Layton had become pregnant and was struggling to visit the horses frequently. Layton claimed she had an arrangement with her brother to look after the horses, but said she had visited on Easter Saturday to check they had been fed and watered.

Tait, who had been visited by the RSPCA previously for keeping horses in poor conditions, claimed that he had moved his horses to the allotment the night before they were found after they were un-tethered from a different location by someone.

Layton was jailed for 18 weeks and Tait was given a 12-week prison term. Both were banned from keeping animals for 10 years.