Remembering year of crime and punishment (From York Press)

Remembering year of crime and punishment

8:28am Monday 2nd January 2012 in News By Jennifer Bell, jennifer.bell@thepress.co.uk

Crime reporter JENNIFER BELL looks back at the biggest crime and police stories of 2011.

JANUARY 8: Police were hunting for the attackers who beat Dominic Conlan in his York home, leaving him with such severe head injuries he spent six weeks in a coma and is still receiving treatment at Leeds General Infirmary.

Police launched a major attempted murder inquiry but his attackers have yet to be brought to justice.

FEBRUARY 1: Residents in York and North Yorkshire could now get unprecedented information about crime rates on their street after the Home Office launched a new crime mapping system.

MARCH 7: A murder probe was launched after father-of-five Mark Webb is stabbed in the throat outside his York home.

APRIL 14: Robin Garbutt was jailed for life for the murder of his wife, Diana, who he bludgeoned to death above their post office in a North Yorkshire village before faking a robbery to cover up his crime.

He must serve a minimum of 20 years. He has since appealed against his conviction.

MAY 10: North Yorkshire’s Chief Constable Grahame Maxwell was severely reprimanded for trying to help a relative get a job.

He received a final written warning after admitting “disreputable conduct” during a force recruitment drive in February 2010, in which more than 300,000 people applied for 60 jobs and the force’s phone hotline repeatedly crashed.

Mr Maxwell and his deputy, Adam Briggs, helped relatives circumvent the jam of calls by putting them on a callback list which should have been reserved for people who had earlier been cut off.

JUNE 22: The Press revealed crime had risen in North Yorkshire for the first time in seven years.

Between January and March 2011, 1,200 more crimes were recorded than during the same period in 2009/10, leading to a turnaround in the force’s figures. However, crime fell later in the year.

JULY 1: South African tourist Lyle Thole, 79, was struck by a stone near York Minster. Paul Andrew Knipe, 43, who may have mental health problems, later admitted he tried to kill the stranger. He is due to be sentenced next month.

AUGUST 10: More than 180 police officers from York and North Yorkshire were sent to London and stepped up patrols locally in the wake of riots in the capital which spread to other parts of the country.

SEPTEMBER 17: York High School pupil Aaron Richardson was assaulted on York’s Knavesmire near a fairground. An 18-year-old man and a 15-year-old boy are later arrested. After being left in a coma, Aaron is now on the road to recovery.

OCTOBER 7: York charity official Howard Rose, 63, was jailed for 15 months after using his role as administrator of the Yorkshire Children’s Hospital Trust to steal more than £76,000 that was meant to help sick babies and children.

OCTOBER 16: Tributes were paid to policewoman and mother-of-two Heather Cooper, who grew up in Acomb, York, who was found killed in Surrey where she served as a detective constable.

Her partner, former policeman Peter Foster, was later charged with her murder.

NOVEMBER 9: Killer Brian Cox was told he must spend at least 18 years in jail for murdering York father-of-five Mark Webb.

NOVEMBER 10: Police won a ruling to stop aggressive beggar Desmond Wassell harassing tourists and residents for money, alcohol and cigarettes.

Since he moved to York in 2009, he had been in trouble with York police every day and been arrested 80 times.

DECEMBER 8: Motorcyclist Matthew Michael Greenwood, from York, was banned from the road after he was caught riding his bike at 116mph. It was the highest speed recorded by North Yorkshire Police’s mobile safety camera – launched in 2011.

DECEMBER 12: This day marked 1,000 days since York chef Claudia Lawrence, from Heworth, vanished.

She went missing in 2009, aged 35. Police are treating her disappearance as murder.

Chief investigating officer Ray Galloway revealed police were now chasing a “significant” new lead.