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Hull rioter with an ‘appalling catalogue’ of other horrific offences is jailed

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November 5, 2024
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Sonny Brewitt threw a plank of wood at police during the Hull city centre disorder in August but also admitted a string of other crimes

A violent troublemaker who played an “active” role during “12 hours of racist hate-fuelled mob violence” in Hull city centre – and also had an “appalling catalogue” of other nasty offences – has been jailed for five-and-a-half years.

Sonny Brewitt was at the front of the frightening disturbances, including the targeting of a garage where cowering children and others had to take refuge. In separate offences, he made his ex-girlfriend’s life a misery by repeatedly harassing her and he was also involved in a callous burglary, Hull Crown Court heard.

Brewitt, 22, of College Grove, off Preston Road, east Hull, admitted violent disorder, racially aggravated criminal damage and stealing a wallet on August 3.

He also admitted separate earlier offences of stalking his ex-girlfriend between July and December last year, breaching a restraining order and assaulting a nurse. He admitted a separate burglary offence on July 14.

Jennifer Gatland, prosecuting, said that bare-chested Brewitt was holding a plank of wood during the disturbances in Hull city centre and he threw it at a line of police officers in Ferensway, Hull. They were forming a protective guard outside the Royal Hotel, which was understood to be housing asylum seekers at the time.

Brewitt was one of the leaders in the confrontation and he was one of the first to get involved in trouble at a garage in Milky Way, off Spring Bank. Seven people, including children, had to pull down the shutters and lock themselves inside the garage. There were shouts by others of “Open the door. I’ll kill you.”

Vehicles were damaged outside while the group cowered inside the main garage. They feared for their safety. Brewitt went up to the shutters and started shaking them. He was part of a mob that surrounded a BMW car with three terrified Romanian occupants inside. He leaned in and stole a wallet.

The stalking offence happened when Brewitt breached a restraining order that had been imposed by Hull magistrates on January 5, 2022, banning him from contacting his ex-girlfriend.

On July 26 last year, he approached her and shouted aggressively at her before grabbing a pram. He followed her, became more aggressive and punched her in the face before pushing her off a fence.

He tried to take her mobile phone from her and pushed her into a bush. She shouted “Get off me”. A nurse saw what was happening and she said that she was going to call the police. Brewitt became aggressive towards her and assaulted her.

In November, Brewitt sent voicemails to his ex-girlfriend, including saying “I’m on my way” and, on another occasion, he went to her home. He also sent a text message to her, pretending to be “Paul from Clough Road custody” and giving a fake crime number.

During a telephone call to the phone number that sent the text, the woman realised that the voice was not the supposed police officer but Brewitt.

The burglary offence happened when Brewitt and an accomplice raided a house in Kilnsea Grove, near Preston Road, east Hull. A TV was stolen from the living room as well as a firestick and a sound bar.

Brewitt was identified from CCTV pictures. The occupier was devastated by what happened because she had known Brewitt for years.

Oliver Shipley, mitigating, said that Brewitt admitted playing an “active” role in the city centre disturbances and it was an escalation in his criminal behaviour from earlier offences.

“His life has clearly spiralled out of control,” said Mr Shipley. “There is no getting over that. This will be his first custodial sentence.”

Brewitt was immature, easily manipulated and prone to boredom and recklessness. He had struggled with the breakdown of his previous relationship with his girlfriend as they had a child together.

Judge John Thackray KC said that Brewitt committed an “appalling catalogue” of offences. He was part of “12 hours of racist hate-fuelled mob violence” in Hull city centre and “utterly deplorable” behaviour.

Brewitt was jailed for a total of five-and-a-half years. It included two years for the city centre violence offences, a consecutive 18 months for breaching the restraining order and a consecutive two years for burglary. He was given a five-year restraining order.

Hull Daily Mail

English neo-Nazi who stabbed asylum seeker was serial stalker

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November 2, 2024
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Terrorist Callum Parslow was previously jailed for sending 10 women sexually explicit and misogynistic messages, and targeted a former GB News presenter

A neo-Nazi terrorist who was found guilty last month of the attempted murder of an asylum seeker is a prolific online stalker who had previously been jailed and referred to the Prevent counter-terrorism scheme, the Observer can reveal.

Callum Parslow was convicted on 25 October of attempted murder after stabbing an asylum seeker at a hotel in April. It can now be revealed he was jailed in 2018 for targeting 10 women and girls with messages describing sexually motivated murder, torture and rape, and then changed his name after his release.

Callum Blake-O’Brien, as he was formerly known, was referred to the Prevent anti-radicalisation programme in 2019 but no further action was taken. He was then arrested again last year for targeting another woman with sexual and racist messages.

Two of Parslow’s victims said they asked police whether he posed a physical threat, but were assured he was a “loner” and a “saddo” who was only a risk online. They feel their concerns were not taken seriously enough by police.

On 2 April, Parslow launched a stabbing attack on an asylum seeker at the Pear Tree Inn, near Worcester, and police found multiple weapons including knives and an axe at his home.

At the time, the 32-year-old was on bail and awaiting trial for his most recent offences against women, which followed a similar pattern to the abuse he was jailed for in 2018.

Parslow was targeting Mercy Muroki, a policy researcher and former GB News presenter, from multiple accounts under fake names on Facebook, Instagram and X.

Among the messages sent in July and August 2023 were videos of himself performing sexual acts and footage of a black woman being flogged.

“The message he sent was about him fantasising that this would ­happen to me,” said Muroki, who has chosen to waive her anonymity.

As well as reporting the direct messages from Parslow to police, she sent investigators screengrabs of his wider violent and white supremacist posts on social media.

Muroki, 29, said she raised concerns about whether Parslow could pose a physical threat to her, but was told that it was “unlikely”, partly because he lived in a different county and did not have a car.

Officers said that in interviews he had admitted his online activity reflected his true beliefs but said he had only messaged Muroki because “he found it difficult to speak to women he fancies”.

Speaking to the Observer, Muroki said: “I said to the police: ‘This is clearly a very deranged person who is fixated on the far-right stuff and on me – do I need to be worried that he might escalate it to something in person?’

“They were kind of like: ‘Oh no, don’t worry.’ They said he seems like a bit of a loner, a bit of a saddo. That’s how they characterised him – just a sad person on a computer – whereas actually I feel that the content he had posted demonstrated it was way past some keyboard warrior stuff.”

When police searched Parslow’s flat in Worcester on 13 December 2023, they found a stockpile of Nazi memorabilia, two copies of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf and numerous other far-right books, and seized Parslow’s phone and laptop.

But he was only charged with offences related to his messages to Muroki, and evidence presented to Leicester crown court suggested he started preparations in earnest for a terror attack soon after being released on bail.

Muroki said the material at Parslow’s flat “demonstrated he was a far-right lunatic but, had he not then gone on to stab somebody, I don’t know the extent to which they would have taken any of that stuff seriously”.

She added: “I didn’t feel like the fact he was clearly a far-right risk was something they would have followed up on.”

Parslow was arrested shortly after fleeing the scene of the hotel stabbing on 2 April, having been found by police while trying to post a terrorist manifesto on X.

As well as focusing on his white supremacist beliefs and calls for further attacks, the document was peppered with misogynist references.

He called white women “alcoholic sluts” who “have as many abortions as possible” and claimed there was a conspiracy to “demonise masculinity”.

Research commissioned by counter-terrorism policing in 2021 showed a “striking prevalence” of domestic abuse in the lives of people referred to the Prevent programme.

Muroki said: “I felt like the police were a bit dismissive about my concerns that he might actually do something after I reported him.

“When I saw [news of the attack], I felt [like] my concerns were well founded – he was someone willing to do something like that. I think they should have taken the fact he was a risk a lot more seriously.”

Muroki said she was shocked that Parslow had been able to legally change his name after his release from prison in 2020.

As Blake-O’Brien, he had been given a 30-month prison sentence in February 2018 for stalking and harassing 10 women and girls online.

Parslow was initially released from jail in 2019 but was recalled for breaching his licence conditions and served his full term in custody, which meant he was freed without a period of probation supervision and the only restrictions remaining were restraining orders issued to protect his victims.

One of the women who brought the original case against Parslow, who was just 17 years old when his crimes against her began, said that her initial attempts to report him to police were rebuffed.

“They said he wasn’t a real threat,” she recalled. “I was turned down by the police multiple times before being taken seriously. He never stopped harassing women … this is just the proof of it now.”

The woman said that finding out that Parslow had been able to commit further offences against Muroki and then a terror attack made her feel as if “fighting for justice against him was a waste of my time”.

She added: “It took me a long time to trust people and heal from everything he said. I thought I would never have to hear his name again in my life, but hearing about him committing these types of crimes, and new violent crimes, makes me feel sick.”

Parslow, originally from Hereford, studied physics at Swansea University but dropped out without completing his degree.

At the time he committed the terror attack in April, he was living in Worcester and working as a computer programmer for a local manufacturer.

Parslow’s attempted murder trial was subject to reporting restrictions after he denied three offences against Muroki, because he was due to face a separate trial later this month and his defence team argued the jury would be prejudiced by media coverage.

But after being found guilty of attempted murder, he immediately pleaded guilty to two counts of malicious communications and one of online exposure. Parslow will be sentenced for both cases at Woolwich crown court in London in January.

A spokesperson for West Mercia police said that Parslow was identified for offences against Muroki after his social media accounts were linked to an IP address at his Worcester home.

“He was released on bail, with bail conditions appropriate to the nature of the offences,” a statement added. “The investigation progressed at pace and remained ongoing at the time he carried out the attack at the Pear Tree Inn.”

The Guardian

Former BBC DJ jailed for stalking Jeremy Vine and others

By
September 16, 2022
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Alex Belfield was found guilty last month after subjecting victims to ‘avalanche of hatred’

A former BBC local radio DJ has been jailed for five years and 26 weeks for stalking broadcasters including Jeremy Vine and subjecting his victims to an “avalanche of hatred”.

Alex Belfield, 42, was last month found guilty of waging a relentless stalking campaign against broadcasters, with Vine labelling him “the Jimmy Savile of trolling”.

Sentencing Belfield at Nottingham crown court on Friday, Mr Justice Saini told him: “Your offences are so serious, only a custodial sentence can be justified.”

The judge said that while Belfield’s actions were not “traditional stalking … your methods were just as effective a way of intimidating victims and in many ways much harder to deal with”.

He added there had been “no escape” for Belfield’s victims until bail conditions were imposed before his trial, and said he agreed with Vine’s characterisation that the ex-DJ had “weaponised the internet” against those he targeted.

He also ordered indefinite restraining orders be made against Belfield, in favour of his victims and four other individuals.

The trial heard Belfield had repeatedly posted or sent abusive messages, videos and emails to his targets and in recent years had set up a YouTube channel known as Celebrity Radio.

The BBC Radio Northampton presenter Bernie Keith was left feeling suicidal by a “tsunami of hate”, the trial heard, while Vine, a Channel 5 and BBC Radio 2 presenter, described his abuse as “an avalanche of hatred”.

Jurors accepted Belfield had caused serious alarm or distress to two victims and he was found guilty of “simple” stalking in relation to Vine and the theatre blogger Philip Dehany.

Saini said a pre-sentence report showed that, while Belfield “fully acknowledges the distress to victims”, it also “highlights you still appear to focus on the impact on you and feel in certain respects you’ve been unfairly treated”.

Giving evidence in court, Vine said watching Belfield’s videos was “like swimming in sewage” and said: “It felt like I had a fish hook in my face and my flesh was being torn, and the only way to avoid further pain was to stay completely still.

“I was brought so low. I just thought: ‘There’s no point broadcasting if the effect is that I’ve got this’.”

Jurors convicted Belfield, of Mapperley, Nottingham, of four charges committed between 2012 and 2021.
BBC News

Fuelled by grief, Mamba and extremism, how dad’s obsession with social workers turned to terrifying campaign to kill

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July 29, 2018
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Fuelled by grief, Mamba and extremism, how dad’s obsession with social workers turned to terrifying campaign to kill

Dean Killen, who said he would kill social workers in Grimsby, after the tragic death of his son

Dean Killen, who said he would kill social workers in Grimsby, after the tragic death of his son

A man who terrorised social workers had links to right wing extremists and convictions for stalking and carrying a concealed knife.

Dean Killen’s campaign of hate against Grimsby social workers was driven by the loss of his son who had died tragically while in foster care.

But his grief also masked a history of menacing behaviour, links to the far right and sinister social media posts in which he calmed he would “be killed” in a plot to overthrow the government.

Killen is now regarded as one of the most serious threats to the safety of social workers in Grimsby and North east Lincolnshire, despite starting a three year jail sentence for threatening to kill them.

North East Lincolnshire Council described Killen’s abuse and threats, as “deeply frightening for staff”.

Killen sent messages and left voicemails with individual social workers threatening to kill them. He also claimed they would be tracked down by a vigilante group named in court.

But Grimsby Live can also reveal that during his hate campaign he also contacted the far right group Britain First and its leader Paul Golding. Golding, a former British National Party member, is currently serving a jail sentence for race hate crimes.

After contacting Golding, Killen, who also followed a series of far right and extremist groups on social media, claimed in one social media post “U watch what happens if they team up with me”.

In another more disturbing post with echoes of violent extremists, Killen claimed he would “be killed” in an attempt to “replace the government” following his son’s death.

He wrote: “I hope you understand dum Britain. I will be killed but this country has destroyed me so I give your country back to you.”

One of Killen's social media posts

One of Killen’s social media posts

Killen’s hate was fuelled by the tragic death of his nine-year-old son Leon who passed away after suffering an epileptic seizure. All four of Killen’s children, aged nine to 17, had been in foster care and he had been banned from attending Leon’s funeral.

Social workers later sent a letter to Killen telling him where his son had been buried in Grimsby.

The tragic death and repercussions triggered a surge in Killen’s hate of social workers in Grimsby and also brought him into confrontations with police.

Killen was known to police in Lincolnshire where he had lived and worked around Horncastle, Boston and Lincoln.

In 2007 he had been found with a 3-inch lock-knife concealed in his jacket when police were called to a domestic incident and found him acting suspiciously in a van.

Weeks later he was banned from approaching a couple who had been his neighbours and anyone in his former estate in Horncastle.

But Killen paid no attention to the courts. A few months later, he was jailed for continuing his campaign of intimidation against the couple after it was revealed he had sent the woman a barrage of aggressive texts and confronted her in the street and outside a school.

He was arrested and jailed but later appealed against the nine month prison term. Throwing out his appeal in 2008, a judge said Killen had been guilty of “repeated, thoroughly unpleasant and intimidating behaviour” and his “flagrant disobedience” to court orders was “deliberate and repeated”.

Killen moved to Lincoln where he had worked as a handyman and skirmished with police as he increasingly turned to the so-called “zombie drug” Black Mamba.

When his son died in August last year, Killen again embarked on a targeted campaign against police and social workers, holding the authorities and individual social workers responsible for the death.

Two of the Facebook posts made by Killen before he said he would kill a social worker

Two of the Facebook posts made by Killen before he said he would kill a social worker

In November Killen received a 16 week suspended prison sentence after a violent confrontation with police.

In January he confronted police after they broke up a chaotic protest in which he had laid out a banner on the cenotaph in central Lincoln saying: “Jail for corrupt social workers, police and judges”.

A few days later he boasted of fighting in the street, posing for selfies on Facebook showing injuries to his eye and mouth, saying: “Two fights in two days. The old me is back. Av been on a lot of scuffs this past year n plenty ov em coppers. I’m not ashamed. They took my kids so I fight. I will not stop. This system has done it with me.”

A complaint about his treatment by Lincolnshire police was thrown out after he claimed they had used too much force when arresting him.

The findings reveal that one officer had to use “distracting punches” to subdue Killen and “prevent further injury to any person”.

Now obsessed with the thought of revenge against social workers or police, on January 19 he called 999 claiming his son had been murdered and that he wanted to kill someone.

He then spoke to a senior police officer on the phone telling her he was going to kill the social workers and branding one of them a “child killer”.

Convinced Killen was now so unstable, he posed a real threat to the safety of social workers and police, officers moved to arrest him. Under questioning, he told police that after the death of his son he “did not care about the lives of others”.

Killen was sentenced at Grimsby Crown Court but in the dock remained defiant. Handcuffed in the dock, Recorder Gurdial Singh commented on Killen: “It’s me he wants to thump”.

As evidence was led, Killen called from the dock “You know nothing, you know nothing.”

And as he was led to the cells, he looked across the court, saying: “When I get out, you’ll know. I shall show you what has happened when I get out.”

After the case, North East Lincolnshire Council said the case showed the challenges its social workers faced.

A spokesman for the council said: “As the evidence of this case has shown, there is and was no excuse whatsoever for the threats made to social workers, who carry out very important and sensitive work in protecting children and families in such situations.

“The actions of the defendant were deeply frightening for staff concerned and there is really no justification for him behaving like who did towards people who were carrying out their jobs in very difficult family circumstances.”
Grimsby Telegraph

Constituent pleads guilty to antisemitic attack on Jon Trickett MP

By
February 4, 2016
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Darren Mark Lumb, who has previous links to the BNP and EDL, verbally attacked the MP in January this year in West Yorkshire

A constituent has pleaded guilty to mounting an antisemitic verbal attack against Labour MP and shadow communities secretary Jon Trickett.

On 23 January 2015, Darren Mark Lumb, 47, stopped the the MP for Hemsworth in West Yorkshire in the street and launched into an antisemitic tirade against him.

During the trial on Thursday at Leeds crown court, Lumb changed his plea to guilty to one count of religiously aggravated harassment and stalking with fear of violence, and one count of breaching an asbo.

umb – who has been known to Trickett’s office for a decade – was released on bail on the condition that he did not approach the MP or any member of his staff and he will return to court on 3 March for sentencing.

Lumb has previously had links to the British National Party (BNP), the English Defence League (EDL) and the National Front, and served as BNP organiser for Wakefield and later West Yorkshire.

He has previous convictions for assault and disorder and was convicted in 2011 of using racially aggravated threatening or insulting words and behaviour after he reportedly called a petrol station worker “a black bastard”.

Lumb, who lives in South Elmsall, stood as a BNP candidate for South Elmsall and South Kirkby in the Wakefield Metropolitan district council election in 2011, where he won 441 votes, 2.6% below the Conservative candidate.

A friend of Trickett’s said the MP had been left shocked and shaken by the incident and that “he hasn’t experienced rage like it in his life”.

Jon Trickett has been MP for Hemsworth since 1996. He served as the parliamentary private secretary to prime minister Gordon Brown from 2008 to 2010 and was then promoted to the shadow cabinet by Ed Miliband in 2011.

Trickett was one of 36 MPs to nominate Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour leadership election and was made shadow secretary of state for communities and local government in the shadow cabinet reshuffle following Corbyn’s landslide victory in September 2015.

The Guardian