There won’t be much to look forward to in 2024 for these 40 killers, rapists, child abusers, drug dealers, thugs and thieves — and for many years still to come.
All were jailed during 2023 and received some of the heaviest sentences handed down by judges at Northampton and other crown courts…
5. WILLIAM APPLEYARD
The 35-year-old, of no fixed address, with a string of convictions for violent robberies was jailed for nine years in January after a court heard he threatened a worker at a Kettering bookies with a meat cleaver before fleeing with £400 cash from a gaming machine in June 2022 — just a week after also targeting a betting shop in Lincolnshire. Photo: Northamptonshire Police
6. STEPHEN BAKER
STEPHEN BAKER The 73-year-old was sentenced to a total 15 years in January for multiple child sex offences and voyeurism. Baker, of Cromford Road, Langley Mill, Nottingham, pleaded guilty at Northampton Crown Court to two counts of voyeurism, two counts of sexually assaulting a child, two counts of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and three counts of making indecent photographs of children. Paul Prior, prosecuting, said that 1,194 images were of the same child who had been sexually assaulted. Photo: Northamptonshire Police
7. ARAMIS SULLIVAN
The 19-year-old was sentenced to more than five years after admitting targeting five victims in four days to get drug money through kidnap, blackmail and robbery in August 2021. Sullivan blackmailed £500 from relatives of one victim he met in McDonald’s after keeping them captive for six hours and warning: “ I’ve got your address, I know what you look like and I know where you live so — if you don’t get this money, something is going to happen to your family.” Photo: Northamptonshire Police
8. LUKASZ STACHURA
The Wellingborough boxer will spend at least 23 years in prison for murdering a man and hiding his body in a ditch. Stachura, 41, joked that he had killed Kamil Leszczynski when friends questioned why they hadn’t heard from the 33-year-old — but he had already killed him in June 2021 and dumped his body close to a Bedfordshire farm track. A court heard in February how Mr Leszczynski's body was found four days after he was killed with bruising consistent with being repeatedly punched and kicked. Photo: Bedfordshire Police