Courts

A Spalding man who suffered a broken leg in a fall and then spent a night sleeping outside in cold conditions died four days later. Nicholas Letchford was “well in drink” when the injury occurred, an inquest heard. The following morning two homeless people came across him on the cleared site of the town’s former Welland Hospital in Roman Bank, ...

A food firm has been fined £40,000 after an employee had two fingers severed in a mixing machine at its Pinchbeck factory. Nicholas Taylor was cleaning the equipment at Greencore To Go in Wardentree Lane when the accident happened in April last year. Boston magistrates heard last week that he had had no training on the Orbital machine. The Health ...

A police officer from Donington has appeared in court charged with possessing indecent images of children and bestiality. PC Paul James Henry (42), of Quadring Road, appeared at Boston Magistrates’ Court last week facing nine charges. He was granted bail to appear for trial at Lincoln Crown Court on December 2. The conditions of his bail are that he is ...

A pensioner committed suicide after wrongly fearing that he had cancer. Douglas Biggadike was “200 per cent” convinced that he had the disease and shot himself after suffering months of pain. A resumed inquest into his August 12 death heard that both his father and father-in-law had died from cancer and he was determined not to suffer similar agony. Mr ...

Four men were due to appear in court today (Tuesday) charged with an ATM ram-raid at a Long Sutton store. Levi Mitchell, (31), of Gibb Croft, Harlow, Leo Smith, (20), from Spriggs Road, Peterborough, Levi Smith, (49), of Conniston Road, Peterborough, and Dale Smith (28), of Malvern Meadows, Worcester, were all charged with conspiracy to burgle a Spar shop in Long Sutton, ...

A nurse described as excellent in clinical practice killed himself after being suspended over stolen medicines he said he needed for his role in custody suites. Lee James Hilton was found dead about a fortnight after suspension first by United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust and then G4S Medical Services, both of which employed the 51-year-old. An investigation was due to be ...

A prison inmate spent time in a Spalding hotel with his wife while he was meant to be serving a jail sentence at North Sea Camp, a court has heard. Douglas Ward was serving a 64-month sentence when he left the jail and travelled to Spalding for meetings with his wife. He booked into the Cley Hall Hotel under his own name ...

A lorry driver who attempted to ruin a Spalding farmer after threatening to poison his crops has been jailed for eight years. Michael Young demanded £50,000 from Low Fulney grower David Bowman warning that he had injected the farmer’s pumpkins with deadly potassium cyanide. Young struck just a week before Mr Bowman’s business was about to harvest the crop for sale. Stuart Lody, prosecuting, said: “There is no evidence whatsoever that cyanide ...

Former Spalding Grammar School head of music Eric Wayman has been jailed for six months for having thousands of indecent images of young boys on his computers at home. Wayman, who taught at the school for 29 years before retiring in 2004 and was founder and conductor of Spalding chamber choir Cantemus, was caught following an investigation into a Canadian company ...

A woman accused of fraudulently using a bank card belonging to a Spalding pensioner has appeared at Lincoln Crown Court. Maria Pridmore (35) is charged with the theft of a bank card belonging to Angela Bird on May 28, this year. Pridmore, of West Cobgate, Moulton, also faces two charges of fraud by false representation. It is alleged Pridmore used ...

UPDATE: 11am Friday Former Spalding Grammar School head of music Eric Wayman indicated guilty pleas to all 12 charges of indecent child images when he appeared at Boston Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday (August 19). He is accused of possessing 4,034 indecent photographs of children, along with 11 counts of making indecent images of children. The charges, which date from June ...

A Spalding man said to have been intending to commit a sexual offence has been remanded in custody.  Vytas Prochorenko (37) was arrested in the Hampton Court area of the town at about 10.30pm on Sunday, August 2. He was charged the following day with the offence of knowingly/recklessly trespassing on premises with intention of committing a sexual offence. Prochorenko, of St John’s ...

A Holbeach motorist is accused of being behind the wheel while almost five times the drink-drive limit. Jenna Peel (32) was arrested in the town’s Park Road on Tuesday afternoon. Police said: “She has been charged with driving a vehicle with an alcohol level of 160 microgrammes in 100 mililitres of breath.” The legal limit is 35 microgrammes. Peel is ...

A Quadring man has appeared in court accused of falsely representing that he was collecting money for the Help for Heroes charity. David Santini (53) faces two charges of fraud, one charge of theft and one charge of wearing a military uniform without permission. Santini, of North Drove, spoke only to confirm his name during a five-minute preliminary hearing at Lincoln ...

Warren Free had been the victim of a previous vicious attack 11 years before his death which had left him scarred and scared, his family has revealed. Speaking to The Voice, Warren’s dad Bob said he wanted people to understand how Warren’s past had left him “vulnerable” to the incident which eventually took his life. He said: “Warren was a ...

A paedophile has been jailed for more than six years for a catalogue of sex offences against young girls. Robert Parrish (51), of Broad Gate, Weston, admitted eight sexual assaults, five exposures, and two counts of voyeurism at a hearing in June. The offences all happened in July, August and September of last year. Two of the sexual assaults happened ...

UPDATE Friday, 5.15pm: Two teenagers charged with perverting the course of justice have appeared before the judge for sentencing. A 14-year-old who denied the charge was convicted by the jury on a 10-2 majority. He was given a youth rehabilitation order with six months’ supervision. The second boy, who is 16, admitted perverting the course of justice by disposing of the metal ...

The six defendants accused of murdering Spalding man Warren Free have been cleared of murder and manslaughter. One of the teenage boys has been convicted of perverting the course of justice. The jury returned their verdicts this afternoon after six full days of deliberation. More to follow shortly.

The jury in the trial of six teenagers accused of the murder of Spalding man Warren Free are to continue their deliberations into a seventh day tomorrow (Friday). The jury of six men and six women, who retired on Thursday of last week at the end of a month-long trial, spent today (Thursday) continuing to deliberate without returning any verdicts before they were sent ...

The jury in the Warren Free murder trial has been told that the judge will now accept majority verdicts. It comes after the foreman of the jury told Lincoln Crown Court at 2.10pm today (Wednesday) that the six men and six women had failed to reached unanimous verdicts on all charges against all defendants. The Honourable Justice Goss told the jury: ...