St Albans Crown Court Sentencing Results

Simon Wilson admitted to sexually grooming a teenage girl and committing a number of sexual offences against her.

Robert Woolner, a 55-year-old school bus driver from Stevenage, Hertfordshire, was caught in an undercover police child grooming operation. Officers subsequently found upskirt videos on his phone of schoolgirls leaving the bus he was employed to drive.

Hannah Harris, a 23-year-old teaching assistant at a school in Hertfordshire, groomed a 14-year-old male pupil starting when she was 21. She exchanged social media messages with the boy, met him outside school, drove him to supermarkets to buy sweets, took him to McDonald's, and allowed him to smoke cannabis in her car. She had been warned at least twice about inappropriate conversations and flirtatious behaviour, including play fighting with a pupil. Harris tricked the boy's parents by pretending to be the mother of his fictional girlfriend. The sexual activity occurred in a supermarket car park in December 2019 and January 2020. She was caught after the boy's older brother discovered the relationship in January 2020, alerting the parents.

Hoa Thi Nguyen was a ringleader in a conspiracy to smuggle migrants across the Channel from France and Belgium to the Kent coast between April and August 2018. On 3 August 2018, a rigid hulled inflatable boat was stopped at Deal, Kent, with four Vietnamese migrants on board. The gang operated dangerously, showing callous disregard for safety, with migrants clinging to straps without lifejackets in pitch darkness. Nguyen masterminded the operation, exploiting migrants for labour and financial gain.

On Saturday 5 August 2023, Daniel Coburn, driving a white Ford Transit drop-side vehicle on Standon Hill on the A120 at Standon, veered onto the wrong side of the road and collided with a red Kia Picanto driven by 81-year-old the victim, who died at the scene. Coburn was over the limit for alcohol, cocaine and MDMA, and had been using his phone in the minutes leading up to the collision, including engaging in sexual acts and conversations while driving.

Craig Stewart was sentenced at St Albans Crown Court to a total of four years after committing five offences against a victim, including intentional strangulation, assault causing actual bodily harm and criminal damage to a car windscreen. He had previously been jailed four years earlier for strangling a victim.

Mark Lovegrove deliberately started fires in bins and rubbish bags in an alleyway between buildings in Hertford's Old Cross and Cowbridge area at around 2am on January 12, 2026. The blaze caused significant damage to neighbouring buildings, including a hairdresser, a beauty salon, and residential properties. He was arrested nearby and later pleaded guilty to three counts of arson.

Thiara moved his victim into his home in April 2019 and held her captive for eight weeks. During that time, he subjected her to relentless physical and verbal abuse, beating her with a bottle, belt, and TV remote, cutting her hair with scissors, forcing her to drink his urine and eat food he had urinated on. Police were alerted by Thiara's father on 6 June 2019 and found the victim with severe facial injuries, her hair brutally chopped off, and cuts, scratches and heavy bruising on her arms.

Natasha Conneely, a police officer working in Bedfordshire Police's offender management unit, had a secret relationship with a known burglar. In May 2023 the force found she had started the relationship; she removed the offender's electronic tag in April so he could visit her home without being traced, then checked systems to ensure their whereabouts had not been tracked. The pair later spent a night together in a hotel in Leeds in June. Conneely resigned from the force and a November 2023 tribunal found her behaviour amounted to gross misconduct; she was placed on the College of Policing's Barred List.

Nazmi Velia was a ringleader in a conspiracy to smuggle migrants across the Channel from France and Belgium to the Kent coast between April and August 2018. On 3 August 2018, a rigid hulled inflatable boat was stopped at Deal, Kent, with four Vietnamese migrants on board. The gang operated dangerously, showing callous disregard for safety, with migrants clinging to straps without lifejackets in pitch darkness. Velia masterminded the operation, exploiting migrants for labour and financial gain.