Robbery and drugs also featured during the month
Martin Naylor Courts and legal affairs correspondent
10:37, 02 Jan 2026Updated 06:07, 03 Jan 2026
Reporter Martin Naylor highlights some of the cases we covered during the month
The final month of 2025 has seen a collection of criminals put behind bars.
Here, reporter Martin Naylor highlights some of the cases we covered during the month.
Teen killer Thomas Dear
Teenage son Thomas Dear Jnr killed his father when he threw half a brick through an open window of his dad’s van, fatally striking him to the head.
The then 19-year-old picked up the weapon and launched it believing 38-year-old Thomas Dear Snr was deliberately driving at him following an argument.
The victim then drove home bleeding from the wound but within an hour suffered a heart attack at the wheel with his wife in the passenger seat.
And the source of the dispute between the pair, the defence said, was the younger man’s “ambition to move away from the Traveller community” and damage caused earlier in the day to caravans.
READ MORE: Teen killed father after throwing brick through open window of his van in Nottinghamshire town
Jailing him for 40 months, Judge James Sampson said: “He was your father, a husband and a father to other children – your siblings – and his death was a great tragedy.
“The cause of death was a cardiac seizure brought about by a traumatic head injury sustained when you threw part of a brick through an open window of a truck he was driving.”
The killing took place in Newark on June 16, this year and Dear, now 20 and of no fixed address with no previous convictions, pleaded guilty to manslaughter at an earlier hearing.
Sam Green KC, mitigating, said: “He increasingly expressed an ambition to move away from the Traveller community towards a salaried position and that led to friction between him and his father.”
Thomas Dear Jnr, now 20 and of no fixed address (Image: Nottinghamshire Police)
Violent robbers Lee Phillips and Calvin Peddie
Robbers Lee Phillips and Calvin Peddie attacked a man in the toilets of a bar in Long Eaton, headbutting him, strangling him almost unconscious and threatening to stab him before ripping jewellery from around his neck and wrist.
In what a judge described as “truly obnoxious thuggery” the victim was held in a choke hold until the look on his face “was one of true horror” at the hands of the pair.
The duo and at least one other man followed the victim, took some of his cocaine from him and then prevented him from leaving the scene of the savage attack
Jailing each of the men for five years, Judge Michael Auty KC said: “This was truly obnoxious thuggery.
“On the night in question the victim had been out with friends first visiting the White Lion public house and then went on to Chalkies Bar, both in Long Eaton, where, it seems, he was something of a regular.
READ MORE: Robbers showed ‘truly obnoxious thuggery’ in savage pub toilet attack
“He went into the gentleman’s lavatories to take cocaine and then you went in.
“He was prepared to surrender some of his cocaine to you but he was not prepared to surrender his jewellery.
“What followed after was a vicious and brutal assault which involved two really significant head butts.
“The first one plainly knocked him almost unconscious but certainly to the stage where he lost control of his faculties and then the second headbutt was entirely gratuitous.
“You had an arm around his throat for some time and the look on his face, on the CCTV I saw, was one of pure horror.
“He was surrounded and prevented from escaping out of the toilet and there was then the threat of a weapon being produced.
“He was a slight man and was therefore no match for you and there was no need for any violence to be used at all.”
The offence happened on April 11, 2025.
Phillips, 32, of Barker Avenue North, Sandiacre, pleaded guilty to robbery, while Peddie, a 34-year-old father of two, of Sean Upton Close, Chilwell, took the case to trial, where he was found guilty of robbery.
As well as the jail terms, both men were handed five-year restraining orders not to contact the victim.
(Image: Derbyshire Police)(Image: Derbyshire Police)
Hucknall drug dealing family
A Nottingham mum, her son and her partner moved thousands of pounds of cocaine and cannabis having turned to dealing to help fund drug use and her gambling addiction.
Nottingham Crown Court heard how Charlotte Dove, Riley Dove (aka Stanley) and Sean Monk were caught out by messages found on phones seized during a raid at her address in Plumb Road, Hucknall.
Analysis showed they had been selling both drugs for a number of months and that over a 12-month period £79,000 passed through her bank account.
Now one has been jailed, one has escaped immediate custody and the third faced an anxious wait over Christmas and New Year to find out their fate.
READ MORE: Hucknall mum, son and partner caught dealing drugs after police searched bedroom
Judge Steven Coupland said: “Miss Dove and Mr Monk, it is plain from what was found at your address that each of you was involved in possessing cocaine with the intention of supplying it on a large scale.
“Anybody involved in the supply of class A drugs in this county commits a very serious offence and you were an integral part in it.
“Riley Dove you were involved in supplying cannabis due to your habit.”
Police executed a warrant at Dove’s home address in September 2023, and in a ground-floor bedroom used by her and her partner, Monk, were found cocaine and cannabis as well as scales and other paraphernalia.
Dove, 40, pleaded guilty to possession with intent to supply cocaine.
She will be sentenced on January 12 as the judge wants to hear more about her personal circumstances.
Monk, 35, of Ogle Street, Hucknall, also pleaded guilty to possession with intent to supply cocaine.
He was jailed for three years.
Dove/Stanley, 19, also of Ogle Street, Hucknall, pleaded guilty to possession with intent to supply cannabis and not cocaine.
He was handed an 18-month community order with 20 rehabilitation sessions and 75 hours of unpaid work.
A Proceeds of Crime Act hearing, which could see the defendants stripped of any cash and assets, will take place on a future date next year.
(Image: Nottinghamshire Police)
Aspley park sex abuser
Dawajan Ahmadzai was jailed for three years for sexually assaulting two nine-year-old boys at Melbourne Park, in Aspley.
The 27-year-old, of no fixed address, denied any wrongdoing but was found guilty of the two charges following a short trial.
That heard how after touching one boy he showed the other a pornographic video on his mobile phone.
And in a heartbreaking victim impact statement, one of the boy’s mothers told how her “once bubbly and outgoing child now makes excuses not to go out”.
READ MORE: ‘Deviant’ targeted young boys in Nottingham park and sexually assaulted them
Sending him to prison, Judge Julie Warburton said: “The boys had gone to Melbourne Park to play with friends where they should have been safe.
“You clearly sought out and pursued contact with these young boys with a view to touching them for your own sexual gratification.
“I have no doubt on the evidence I saw and heard this was your intention throughout.
“It was done with a predatory sexual motive for your own deviant sexual pleasure.”
The offences happened in the park on the afternoon of June 15, this year.
As well as the jail term, the judge placed Ahmadzai on the sex offender register for life, handed him a lifetime sexual harm prevention order and a 10-year restraining order.
Both boys are afforded lifetime anonymity.
(Image: Nottinghamshire Police)
Rolex robbery gang
A robbery gang, who lured their victim into an alleyway, stabbed him, and stole his £11,000 Rolex watch and £6,000 in cash, were jailed for a combined total of 40 years.
The victim arranged to meet sellers in The Meadows who he had agreed to buy some goods from, but in reality, did not exist.
But when he arrived, he was bundled down the twitchell, punched, threatened with the blade, stabbed in the arm and had his items taken.
And in a victim impact statement the man who was attacked said he “thought he would lose his life” during the “terrible and terrifying” incident.
Judge Stuart Rafferty KC said: “All of you were involved in the commission of the planned robbery.
“Unarmed and alone, the victim walked into the trap.
“Three of you, two of you kickboxers, were no doubt hired as the muscle, and he was set upon, knocked to the ground, having been stabbed to the arm.
READ MORE: Man ‘walked into a trap’ and feared for his life in terrifying gang attack in Nottingham alleyway
“While he was on the ground, he was slashed to the back and that attack persisted and would have continued had his friend not come, shouted and caused it to stop.
“That’s the only reason the violence stopped and by the time it stopped £7,000 and his £11,000 Rolex watch was taken and he was left a shell of the man he had previously been.”
The trial heard how the victim was attacked in Hope Close at around 4.45pm on February 27.
George Chirita, 20, of Lymington Road, Dagenham, Essex, fled from the UK before the trial, played no part in proceedings and was sentenced in absence this week to seven years in prison
Costel Ilie, 37, of South Street, Romford, Essex, a construction worker and father of two, was jailed for eight years.
Ringleader Ionel Radu, 49, of Armstrong Close, Dagenham, Essex, was put behind bars for 10 years.
Ionut Stoica, a 31-year-old father-of-three, of Central Park Road, East Ham, London, was handed an eight-year sentence.
And Mihai Melu, a 23-year-old churchgoer, of Rectory Road, Manor Park, London, was sent to prison for seven years.
Ionel Radu, 49, of Armstrong Close, Dagenham, Essex, jailed for 10 years for organising a robbery in Nottingham(Image: Nottinghamshire Police)
Property fraudster
Nottingham takeaway owner Mujeebullah Khan dishonestly took out a £50,000 Government Covid bounce-back loan despite having sold the business months earlier.
The 38-year-old father, of Aspley, used the money – which was designed to prop up firms affected by 2020’s lockdown – to pay back a relative who had initially helped him set up Chunky Chicken in 2016.
The married defendant initially claimed he had not acted dishonesty and has now paid back all of the money.
But that has not stopped him receiving an immediate jail term for his criminal activity.
READ MORE: Nottingham takeaway owner illegally claimed £50,000 Covid bounceback loan
Sending him to prison for 22 months, Judge Steven Coupland said: “During Covid, the Bounce Back Loan Scheme was introduced to save businesses which were badly affected by the pandemic.
“That scheme was based on trust and relied on the honesty of the applicants.
“You made an application for £50,000 stating your business had a turnover of £250,000 and that you intended to use that loan to help the business.
“But that was entirely dishonest because you had already sold the business and instead you used the money to pay back someone who had originally loaned you the money to start the business in the first place.
“In my view, you deliberately targeted a vulnerable scheme and although the loan has now all been paid back in full the impact is large because it affects public confidence.”
Khan, of St Margaret’s Avenue, pleaded guilty to fraud and has no previous convictions of any kind.