Latest Offenders Sheffield

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A sex offender caught with nearly 1,200 indecent images of children aged as young as five was today spared jail following what a judge described as an ‘unjust delay’ by police in Sheffield.

Toni Prince, of Infirmary Road, Upperthorpe, downloaded 1,191 indecent images of children, including some of children being raped.

Police also found an ‘extremely unsettling' handwritten table in her bedside drawer, which contained words including ‘rape’ and ‘torture’, when they raided the 55-year-old’s home.

Prince, whose legal forename is Anthony but who identifies as a woman and goes by the name Toni, admitted her crimes after being arrested on June 14, 2016.

Sentencing her today, Judge Peter Kelson QC described it as a 'very serious case’ and voiced his concerns over the delay in bringing her to justice, which he said police accepted was ‘entirely’ their fault.

“When there has been, as there clearly has been here, an unjust delay which is not in any way, shape or form your fault, I’m bound by the law to take it into account, and I do so,” he told the defendant.

He sentenced Prince to six months imprisonment, suspended for one year, meaning she will not be jailed unless she commits a further offence during the next 12 months.

She was also made the subject of a 10-year sexual harm prevention order and given a 34-day rehabilitation activity requirement.

Prince had previously admitted making indecent images of children, possessing prohibited images of children, and possessing extreme pornographic images. In legal terms ‘making’ images can refer to downloading them, which is what she had done.

In total, she downloaded 108 images classed as category A, which is the most serious; 90 falling into category B; and 993 category C ones.

She also downloaded 53 images of ‘extreme pornography’ and 337 prohibited images of children, which the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) defines as ‘non-photographic’ images including ‘cartoons, manga and drawings’. 

The court heard how South Yorkshire Police first submitted a file to the CPS on August 5, 2016 but officers were asked to provide details of the content found on the devices seized from Prince’s home.

Despite being chased by the CPS, it was another two years before police eventually resubmitted the file with this additional evidence on August 15, 2018, and Prince eventually appeared in court for the first time on April 16 this year.

Ian Goldsack, defending, told how Prince had been a victim of childhood abuse.

He said she had made ‘significant’ strides since being arrested, by voluntarily attending many hours of counselling in an attempt to address the problems which led to her accessing child pornography.

Judge Kelson read a statement from the counsellor who had seen Prince, who described her as the ‘most vulnerable client we have worked with in terms of the effect of her early trauma on her mental and physical health’ but added that she was also the most ‘committed’ to addressing her problems.

Mr Goldsack told how the University of Sheffield, where Prince was studying for a PhD, had been informed of the investigation following Prince’s arrest. When the university asked police for an update last year, he said it was wrongly informed that no charges were being brought and it passed this information on to Prince.

Gurdial Singh, prosecuting, said the delay was ‘down to negligence to put it bluntly’ on the part of those investigating.

Description

This CCTV footage shows a savage rapist following a teenager moments before he dragged her under a footbridge and raped her in Leeds city centre. Samuel Fortes, a Portuguese national who was living in Sheffield, was wandering around Leeds city centre for hours in the early hours of Saturday, June 23. At around 3am, a 19-year-old, blonde woman was walking home from a night out with friends when the 27-year-old approached her on St Paul's Street and asked her for her number. She rejected his request and video chatted with her boyfriend as she continued to walk home. But Fortes, a paranoid schizophrenic with a history of domestic violence, did not accept the rejection and started to follow her. Leeds Crown Court heard the woman realised she was being followed and turned to ask Fortes if he had lost his friends. He pointed in the general direction of the city centre. In an attempt to try to deter him, she offered to help him find her friends and told him her friends were nearby - knowing they were not. The video footage shows the woman stopping to sit on a wall to let Fortes pass her. He initially walked past her before slowing down and pretending to urinate on a lamppost. She then continued to walk on and he ran after her to the footbridge. Off-camera, he grabbed her from behind and dragged and carried her under the flyover. At one point, her boyfriend took screenshots of him stamping on her face, but her phone was then smashed. When the video chat ended, he called the police. Under the flyover, Fortes smirked as he raped the teenager. The victim asked him why he was doing it and he responded by repeatedly punching her in the face. She feared for her life and fought back, pulling at his hair in an attempt to get him off of her. Passersby found her handbag, her keys and her smashed phone on the footbridge and disturbed the rape. One man attempted to chase Fortes as he ran off. He hid in a bush for an hour before fleeing to his home in Sheffield. The footage resumes as he left the scene, appearing to have clumps of hair coming out of his curly black hair. When he was arrested at his home, he had clumps of hair missing. Today, the survivor told her rapist in court: "I pity you." He was deemed a 'grave and immediate' risk to the general public and jailed for life with a minimum of eight years. West Yorkshire Police released the CCTV with the permission of the victim, who has the legal right to anonymity. 'I have nightmares about his face glaring back into mine as I asked him to stop' As a result of the attack, the victim needed hospital and dental treatment and has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. The young woman stood up in court to tell the judge presiding over the case about the affect the rape had on her. She suffered a facial fracture, which healed, but said her remaining facial injuries are 'a constant reminder of the attack'. Other physical affects of the attack included a concussion and chronic headaches, which would cause her to collapse. She said: "My head had swollen to the size of a football, a lot of my hair fell out and I completely lost all my confidence, which I am finding difficult to re-develop." She had to take pre-exposure prophylaxis to prevent the development of AIDs. She said: "I have experienced what I hope to be the lowest point, mentally, in my life. There were days, at the beginning of my recovery period, where I could not leave my bed and that is simply because I did not see a point in doing so. "I laid in the same position for days, questioning what I could have done differently. Questioning why I was the victim and questioning if the pain I have caused my family was worth walking back [home]. "I could not eat or sleep. I was and still am sickened by the thought that one human could do such a thing to another. "I feared falling asleep as that was the point where my thoughts were vivid. I could picture the face of Mr Fortes glaring back into mine when I asked him to stop. I often thought about the feeling that overcame me as I was under the bridge, a feeling of death, a feeling that words will never justify." She said she 'struggles to adopt a positive view' on people who have similar features as Fortes, but she 'does not intend to discriminate against people based on their differences', adding: "I feel as though my mind has been permanently altered." "I felt completely out of control, and often find myself feeling that way at times," she continued. "The act is an invasion of body and mind, and by forcibly using my body sexually, he has complete disregard for my value." "I feel little and dehumanised when I think back to the incident." She said her dad told a family member: "It is like you have been growing and protecting a flower for 19 years and all of a sudden somebody just comes and stomps on it." But she said: "I dont want people to see me as 'damaged' or 'hurt'." Speaking about the affect on her relationship with her boyfriend, she said: "It was difficult for my boyfriend to see the beginning of the attack, before Mr Fortes smashed my phone, and we often have conversations about how to move forward - this should not be." Statement from West Yorkshire Police Det Supt Jaz Khan, of the Protective Services (Crime) team, was in charge of the investigation and subsequent search for Fortes. He said: "Fortes subjected this brave woman to a horrific ordeal and I want to praise her for her bravery in helping to bring her brutal attacker to justice. She decided to speak out about her ordeal through her statement and then asking for CCTV footage to be released. "Despite being in fear for her life she bravely fought her attacker and her boyfriend had the foresight to screenshot the incident this was a key piece of evidence along with the DNA hit which helped to bring Fortes to justice. I have spoken personally to her and been amazed by her bravery." He said forensic teams searched the scene for vital clues, including a single piece of hair, which helped to quickly identify Fortes as a suspect. He continued: "Working with the victim we have decided to release the footage from the case to help illustrate that whilst this may have been a serious offence we are here to support victims and to achieve justice for them. "The footage we have released is just a small snapshot of the footage we looked through of Fortes to track his movements through Leeds and then build a case against him which led to him being jailed today." Ch Supt Steve Cotter, the district commander for Leeds, said: "We work closely in partnership with Safer Leeds to ensure Leeds is a safe place to live and work. Offences such as this are exceptionally rare. However as in this case we will work tirelessly to bring offenders to justice to make communities safe and feel safe."