March 2021

Royal Navy veteran jailed for sharing vile images of child abuse

A Royal Navy veteran has been jailed for sharing vile images of toddlers and a baby being sexually abused.

A judge told twisted William Mackinnon, aged 53, that he “plumbed the very depths of depravity”.

He spent months distributing dozens of pictures of toddlers being attacked by adults, Plymouth Crown Court heard.

But Judge Robert Linford told him he had failed to confront his perverted behaviour.

Jailing Mackinnon for two and a half years, the judge told him: “Some of these images and videos show children as young as two to four, and on one occasion a baby, engaging in sexual activity.

“This material plumbs the very depths of depravity. These films do not exist in the ether. These are real little girls, people’s daughters, granddaughters and nieces being sexually abused.”

He added that if people did not share such material online, then it would not be produced in the first place

Judge Linford said that Mackinnon had failed to come clean to a probation officer despite what he called the “overwhelming” verdicts of the jury.

Mackinnon, of Sutherland Road, Mutley, pleaded not guilty to three offences of distributing and three offences of making indecent images of children.

He was found guilty by a jury after a trial earlier this year and sentencing was adjourned for a probation report.

Mackinnon was handed the two and a half year sentence for the most serious charge of distributing 64 Category A images of children between November 2017 and November 2018.

Those are the pictures showing sexual abuse by adults.

His other prison sentences will run concurrently to that term.

February 2018

Plymouth park sex rapist fails in bid to clear his name

A Plymouth man who was jailed for a rape he claims he did not commit today failed in a Court of Appeal bid to clear his name and win his freedom.

Daniel Michael Hawkins , 32, was accused of raping the young woman in her bedroom after going back to her house after a night out.

But Hawkins, of Clowance Lane, has always insisted that the sex was consensual, once in a park and again in her room.

He was convicted of rape at Plymouth Crown Court in December 2016 and jailed for six years.

Last October, he was granted permission for an appeal, but today, after the case reached court again, three top judges upheld his conviction.

“The conviction is not unsafe and the appeal, therefore, is dismissed,” Lord Justice Irwin told London’s Court of Appeal.

The court heard Hawkins was accused of raping the woman after a night of drinking.

He went back to her house and, despite a brush-off, had sex with her against her will.

She told police she told him to leave her alone, because it was “not right”.

However, she said he insisted: “But it’s so right”.

Lawyers for Hawkins said the issue for the jury was the woman’s credibility, whether she was telling the truth or not.

But the defence had been unfairly hampered by the trial judge’s refusal to allow her to be cross-examined about a previous incident.

The alleged incident involved a report she made of a physical assault to police about another man, which Hawkins’ lawyers claimed was false.

It showed she had a tendency to make false complaints and it should have been included in the trial, they argued.

Rejecting the appeal, Lord Justice Irwin said including the evidence of the allegedly false complaint would have turned the case into a “Shakespearean plot”.

It would have led to a “trial within a trial”, with numerous other witnesses being called to give evidence about the previous incident.

“The jury would have been embroiled in a complicated sub-issue which would have, at best, been of limited value as to the main point, the credibility of the complainant,” he said.

The appeal was dismissed and Hawkins’ conviction upheld.

March 2021

Sex offender jailed for lying about his past

A sex offender from Newton Abbot has been jailed for befriending two young mothers without telling them about his paedophile past.

Craig Beddows was banned from having contact with any children under 16 unless he revealed his convictions to their parents but broke the order repeatedly over more than a year.

He visited the homes of two young mothers who had a total of four children, all boys. He gave some of them presents and encouraged them to call him Uncle Craig.

His previous offences, in 2003, 2014 and 2016, had been against girls.

The mothers, who met him in pubs in Newton Abbot, were horrified when they were tracked down by his police offender manager and told the truth.

Beddows, aged 55, of Wolborough Street, Newton Abbot, admitted four breaches of a sexual harm prevention order (SHPO) and was jailed for 20 months by Recorder Mr Timothy Kenefick at Exeter Crown Court.

He told him: ‘The mothers were understandably upset and felt you had been betrayed their trust.

‘You have previous convictions for both sexual offences and breaches of court orders.’

Mr Ian Graham, prosecuting, said Beddows met a mother with three sons in November 2018 and visited her home regularly for a year.

He became friendly with her three boys but was never left alone with them, although he offered to look after them when she went shopping.

He gave them Christmas presents and encouraged them to call him uncle.

He went on to make friend with one of her friends, who also had a son, and visited her home in December 2019 and January 2020.

July 2014

Craig Beddows (48), of Knightstone Road, Weston. Two counts of breaching conditions of sexual offenders register:

Sent to prison for 14 days.

Breach of suspended sentence: Sent to prison for 24 weeks (concurrent).

March 2021

Face of dad who raped three women and a man in Plymouth

A sex monster has been jailed for 20 years for raping four extremely drunk people after they left Plymouth nightclubs.

Illegal immigrant John Chalachew, aged 33, attacked three women and a man as he preyed on revellers in the early hours.

He lured the women back to his shared house and dragged the male victim into an alleyway, a court heard.

The father-of-three even raped two women in one night as they slept in different rooms.

Chalachew denied six counts of rape over seven months but was found guilty by a jury at Plymouth Crown Court in November.

The trial judge this afternoon jailed him for 20 years.

Chalachew, who lived in a house with other asylum-seekers in Mount Gould Road, was given a jail term of 20 years with an extended licence of eight years.

The court heard that Chalachew, who arrived in Belfast on a ship in 2005, had 16 previous convictions for 23 offences, including for burglary and violence.

Judge James Townsend said all four victims were more vulnerable because of alcohol.

He added: “I have no hesitation in concluding that it was obvious to you just how badly your victims were affected at the time that you decided to use them for sex.

Judge Townsend ruled that Chalachew was a dangerous offender and would not even be considered for release until two-thirds of the way through his prison term – rather than the usual half-way mark.

Djibouti-born Chalachew, who entered the country illegally, faces deportation with the Home Office watching the sentencing hearing at Taunton Crown Court.

Judge Townsend rejected claims that his offending was opportunistic, though he added that the man had been raped after the defendant has been thrown out by his partner.

He added: “A security doorman testified quite clearly that there were two further nights when drunken women were targeted by you and members of the public intervened.”

Chalachew had sex with one woman without her consent in three different ways – making up three counts.

His victims vary from the teenage man to a woman in her 40s between March and October 2018.

A woman in her early 20s and a family friend in her mid 40s made the first complaint to police in March 2018.

They said that they had bumped into each other on a night out at the Crash Manor club in the city centre and were both under the influence of alcohol.

Both women shared a taxi with the defendant and another man back to Chalachew’s home.

The jury heard that the women slept in different rooms but each woke to find Chalachew having sex with them.

The teenage man was to tell police he had also been raped by Chalachew two months later, in the early hours of May 24.

The court heard that he was separated from friends and was walking home alone after a night out at Pryzm on the Barbican Leisure Park.

He was heading up North Hill to buy some cigarettes from the 24-hour Spar shop when Chalachew dragged him into an alleyway and raped him.

The victim in October 2018 was a married mother in her 30s who had gone out with a friend on the spur of the moment, visiting Walkabout and Popworld.

She became drunk and the two friends were separated. Chalachew somehow got her back to her home and raped her.