Four masked burglars who broke into a house in Selby with weapons and attacked the householder have been jailed for a combined 48 years.
They were among six men wearing balaclavas who burst into the property in Millgate in the early hours of March 24, 2022, apparently intent on stealing drugs from the male victim.
One of the raiders, a young Selby man, died after being stabbed by the male householder.
The five other burglars – Selby men Daniel Welford, 31, Max Jackson, 33, and Andrew Richardson, 38, and two men who can’t be named for legal reasons at this stage – were each charged with aggravated burglary.
Welford, Jackson and a named Goole man in his 30s, formerly of Selby, denied the offence. They were each found guilty after a week-long trial at Leeds Crown Court in July.
Richardson and another named Selby man in his 30s admitted the offence before a jury was sworn in.
They all appeared for sentence today (Thursday) except the named Goole man who used to live in Barlby. He will be sentenced on 21 August.
The jury heard that six masked men with weapons including a crowbar, metal poles and an axe handle burst into the house to allegedly steal cocaine.
Prosecutor Andrew Petterson said the raiding party were wearing balaclavas, masks, gloves and dark clothes. They knocked on the door and then forced it open when it was answered by the named victim who was at home with his family and two friends.
As the raiders charged towards him, the victim retreated into the living room where he was struck on the head with a crowbar.
It’s believed that that “heavy” blow was struck by Welford.
The victim then managed to grab a Rambo-style knife from his bedroom. When a man referred to as “Male 1” got on top of him, the victim threw him off and lunged at him with the blade about three times.
“Male 1” died of his injuries from the stabbing at the scene, despite the best efforts of paramedics.
Ran off
Mr Petterson said the raid occurred just after 1am when the victim was listening to music and playing on his Xbox with two friends.
The five raiders who fled the house off Millgate were captured on CCTV footage and were arrested later that same day at various addresses in Selby.
Mr Petterson said it wasn’t until about a year after the armed raid that the victim, having been tipped off about the names of the suspects, was able to identify them.
He identified Welford after searching his profile on Facebook and “recognised his eyes” which he could see through the balaclava.
“(The victim) said he knew the man who hit him with the crowbar because he searched him on Facebook… and heard it on the grapevine,” added Mr Petterson.
He said that Max Jackson, described as the “taxi driver”, took the raiders to the victim’s house in his Honda Civic.
The victim, a 21-year-old father-of-two, later told police of the moment the gang forced their way into his house: “A group of people with balaclavas were charging at me dressed in black. I was panicking, my stomach was turning. All six of them overpowered me.
“We were in my kitchen where the front door was. Someone came over the top of the first person with a crowbar and cracked me over the head with it.”
He went on: “We carried on scuffling. I was throwing punches to try and stop it; they are charging in.
“I panic. I quickly run to the bedroom and grab my Rambo knife from the window sill and ended up stabbing the first person in front of me.
“He was trying to hit me. I lunged at him. He tried to hold onto me and the other guy started cracking me on the head with the other pole. That’s when they realise I’ve stabbed him.
“He’s tried grabbing my arm and I lunge three times. The ones behind him pushed him on top of me. They all ran off so there’s this crush at the door. They run away and come back and smash my windows and the windows on my door.”
He said the man “at the front”, who later died, was wielding “something like a green pole”. Another man was also brandishing a metal pole.
He said he knew the man who died “just as an acquaintance from years ago”.
As they waited for the emergency services to arrive, the victim’s partner gave the fatally injured man chest compressions, but to no avail.
‘They were cowards’
Mr Petterson said: “The burglars were cowards. They went round in the middle of the night in a pack, they hid their faces, they went armed.
“This meant (the victim) didn’t stand a chance, but the clearest indication of the spineless nature of the burglars is how they escaped after one of the raiders had been stabbed.
“Not one of these men stopped to help their associate. They laid their weapons down, pulled off their masks and ran.
“Not one of them rang an ambulance. They weren’t to know that a neighbour had contacted police; they weren’t to know that (the victim) would ultimately call for an ambulance, and the reason for that is these men were more concerned about saving their own skin, keeping themselves out of trouble, than saving their friend.”
Mr Petterson said the raiders intended to, and did, steal drugs from the victim’s home.
He said that police didn’t find any cocaine at the victim’s address but did later find a camouflage bag full of drugs and paraphernalia under a trampoline at an address in Selby linked to one of the burglars.
The bag contained cocaine and cannabis inside a fish-food box, plastic grip-seal bags and a set of weighing scales. The prosecution said the drugs were taken from the victim’s home.
Police forensics found DNA on the bag matching that of Max Jackson.
Police searched the Honda that was driven by Jackson and found a red-handled crowbar in the boot. More weapons including crowbars were found inside a wheelie bin outside a property in the East Common area of Selby.
Officers also found traces of blood from two of the burglars including Jackson inside the Honda.
Crowbar found
Less than an hour after the raid, Welford contacted police and told them where they would find him.
Jackson, from Hambleton, was arrested about an hour after the burglary. He told police that the crowbar found in the car boot was for his job as a demolition worker and that he kept a lot of tools in the car.
Giving evidence in court, he said that one of the burglars had told him he needed help “to get cocaine” and that he thought it was “just a normal pick-up”.
The jury heard that Jackson had previous convictions for carrying a knife, burglary and theft.
Welford, Jackson and the man from Goole each claimed they had played no active part in the burglary and violence, or claimed they were outside the house at the time of the raid, but were convicted by the jury.
Judge Tom Bayliss KC said the “very serious aggravated burglary” was right at the top of the category range for sentencing guidelines and had led to the death of a young man.
He told the defendants: “It must seriously have been in your contemplation that (the burglary victim) might fight back and so he did, with fatal consequences for (the deceased man).”
He noted the profound psychological impact that the raid had had on the victim’s partner who had since moved house.
“Her life has been turned upside down by these events which you men were instrumental in committing,” he added.
“This was well-organised and all of you have previous convictions. What you thought you were doing, breaking in in the dead of night, beggars belief.”
Jackson, of Garth Drive, Hambleton, and Welford, of Primrose Grove, Selby, were each jailed for 13 years.
Andrew Richardson – formerly of Larch Way, Selby, but lately of Wilkinson Avenue, Doncaster – and the other named Selby man were each jailed for 11 years and four months because they pleaded guilty before the trial.
The judge told them they would each serve two-thirds of those sentences behind bars before being released on prison licence.