CRIMINALS locked up in March include a man who fraudulently took thousands of pounds from people he engaged in a relationship with and a professional dog walker who left two dogs in a boiling hot car.
Below are the criminals put behind bars in March for offences in Dorset.
Thomas George McConnell
Thomas George McConnell was put behind bars for 20 months and disqualified from driving for five years.
McConnell was taken to court in relation to a single-vehicle crash in Bovington on the morning of Saturday, July 25, 2020.
Dorset Police received a report at 6.20am of the collision in King George V Road near the entrance to the army camp involving a BMW 320d that had left the road and struck a telegraph pole before colliding with a tree on the grass verge.
Police, fire and ambulance services attended the scene where they found the two passengers in the vehicle, both men aged in their 20s, with serious injuries.
Police said one of the passengers suffered several breaks to his arm as well as broken bones in his toes, lacerations to his liver and to his mouth. The other man sustained a fractured spine and injuries to his bowel.
Officers' enquiries established the car had been taken from an address in West Lulworth without the owner’s permission shortly before the collision.
A sample of McConnell’s blood was taken in hospital and sent for analysis. It was found to contain not less than 112 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood. The legal limit is 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood. It was also found to contain more than 200 micrograms of benzoylecgonine – the metabolite of cocaine – per litre of blood, exceeding the specified limit of 50 micrograms per litre.
McConnell, of Water Lane, Winfrith Newburgh, was sentenced at Winchester Crown Court on Friday, February 18, after admitting two charges of causing serious injury by dangerous driving and an offence of aggravated vehicle taking as well as offences of drink and drug driving.
Julio Sweeney
Julio Sweeney “preyed” on the vulnerable single women, engaging in relationships with both of them at the same time.
Sweeney, 58 and of Hurn Road, Matchams, took more than £10,000 from his victims, as well as cherished personal possessions, before they got in contact with each other on social media and went to police.
The defendant pleaded guilty to 14 counts of fraud by false representation on the day that he was due to stand trial at Bournemouth Crown Court.
Recorder James Newton-Price QC, who sentenced Sweeney to 15 months’ imprisonment at the same court on March 25, told the offender he had ruined his victims’ lives.
One of the victims described Sweeney as a “heartless, selfish, manipulative sociopath” who “preys on hard-working” women.
Christine Carpenter
Christine Carpenter left two spaniels she was paid to walk in the boot of her car, days after the Met Office had issued its first ever extreme heat weather warning last summer.
The animals - a King Charles Cavalier named Poppie and a cross called Pixie - were dead 'within minutes', as temperatures reached 29 degrees centigrade outside, a court heard.
On later examination by a vet, their internal temperatures were found to be the maximum the thermometer could reach.
Owners company director Roy Narbey and wife Kate were left 'devastated' by their deaths after leaving them in the care of someone they considered a friend.
Mrs Carpenter was then investigated and prosecuted by the RSPCA.
Magistrates heard the 55-year-old mother took a group of dogs, including her own, out during the middle of the afternoon in her hometown of Ringwood.
Carpenter was interviewed by police two days after. She said she took the dogs for a walk and they went in the water before getting back into her car and letting them out in her garden.
She said she put Poppy and Pixie in her car with the windows open, then went back inside to get her phone when she felt unwell and had a wash.
She then locked the house and went outside, but went back inside to grab a shopping bag as she was planning to go to the supermarket.
District Judge Anthony Callaway sentenced her to 18 weeks imprisonment and disqualified her from owning any animal for eight years.
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