The latest cases to be heard at Harrogate Magistrates Court between October 4 and October 9

The following were heard at North Yorkshire Magistrates’ Court on October 4:

Jak Webber-Keen, 20, of Westcliffe Grove, Harrogate, was fined £150 for not wearing a seat belt while driving a Mercedes on Chelmsford Road. The offence was detected on November 19 last year. He was ordered to pay £90 prosecution costs and a £60 statutory surcharge. A separate allegation of using a hand-held mobile while driving was dropped by the prosecution because there was insufficient evidence to prove this.

Alistair Bradley, 24, of Ashfield Road, Harrogate, received a six-month driving ban under the totting-up procedure for speeding on Leeds Road. He was driving a Nissan Navara when the offence occurred on January 8. He was fined £184 and made to pay £90 costs, along with a £74 surcharge.

The following were heard at North Yorkshire Magistrates’ Court on October 5:

Thomas Richardson, 24, of Longlands Lane, Whixley, was ordered to carry out a further 50 hours’ unpaid work for committing an offence while subject to a suspended prison sentence. The original suspended sentence was imposed in June last year for possessing ketamine. The court decided it would be “unjust” to activate the suspended sentence and send Richardson to jail because he had shown “great personal responsibility to address his offending by self-referring himself to (the drug-support charity) Horizons to address his drug use which is at the core of his offending”. Under the new order, which remains a six-month suspended jail sentence, Richardson must carry out 50 hours of unpaid work within the next 12 months.

Magdalena Bogaczyk, 51, of Mount Parade, Harrogate, was fined £130 and had three points added to her licence for failing to comply with lane-closure signals at Starbeck level crossing. She admitted ignoring the red light in High Street, Starbeck. Bogaczyk was driving a Nissan which failed to comply with the indication given by a traffic-light signal. The offence occurred on February 26. She was ordered to pay £85 costs and a £52 surcharge.

The following were heard at North Yorkshire Magistrates’ Court on October 6:

Jordan Lee Brown, 23, of St Nicholas Road, Harrogate, was fined £50 for breaching a community order. He failed to comply with the requirements of the order by missing a rehabilitation-activity appointment and being absent from his specified place of curfew between July 31 and August 22, incurring nearly eight hours of accumulated time violations. He was also ordered to pay £85 prosecution costs.

Antony Brown, 40, of Dene Park, Harrogate, was fined £50 for failing to comply with the requirements of a community order. He breached the order by missing two probation appointments in June and August.

A man who bragged on Facebook that he was “feeling cute, might shoot up a school” has been ordered to undergo drug-rehabilitation treatment after breaching his community order. Laurie Patrick Coleman, 30, of Gray Street, Harrogate, breached the order - imposed at Welshpool Magistrates’ Court in Montgomeryshire in February - by skipping two probation appointments in April and August. The order was revoked and Coleman was sentenced for the offences which led to the original community punishment. They included posting on Facebook that he was “feeling cute, might shoot up a school” and uploading a photograph of a male holding an automatic weapon. That offence, of sending a menacing post by means of a public electronic communications network, occurred in Newtown, Wales, on September 18, 2020. The original offences also included driving while over the specified limit for cocaine and cannabis in Newtown on September 13, 2020. The North Yorkshire court imposed a new 12-month community order which included a three-month drug-rehabilitation requirement and up to 15 days’ general rehabilitation activity. He was also made to pay £85 prosecution costs.

Kundananjii Gombe, 26, of Albert Road, Harrogate, was fined £50 for breaching a suspended prison sentence. He breached the community requirements of the order by failing to attend a rehabilitation-activity appointment in April and failing to make himself available for the installation of his curfew-monitoring equipment on August 26 and 27. Gombe, a Zambian national, was ordered to pay £85 costs but the suspended sentence wasn’t activated because he had found employment and had since been engaging well with his probation order. The court said his not completing his unpaid work was “not the defendant’s fault”.

Steven Hill, 41, of Lindley Mews, Harrogate, was fined £50 for breaching a community order. He failed to comply with the requirements of the order by skipping two probation appointments in August.

The following were heard at North Yorkshire Magistrates’ Court on October 9:

Michael James Smith, 33, of Bower Street, Harrogate, was jailed for four months for breaching a suspended prison sentence. He flouted the order by failing to comply with the requirements of his curfew in August in that he was evicted from his home and had “therefore withdrawn consent to be monitored at the address provided to the court”. Smith, who is now essentially homeless, received the original suspended sentence in December last year for carrying a knife in Harrogate town centre. The four-month jail sentence - which was originally suspended for two years - was activated to mark the breach. The court cited Smith’s “low compliance with the suspended-sentence order” and noted that it was his second breach, which meant that an immediate jail sentence was just.

Danny Wilson, 20, of Maple Close, Knaresborough, received a six-month conditional discharge for knowingly dumping household waste on land in County Durham without an environmental permit. The offence occurred at an address in Church Street, Coundon, in May 2021. He was ordered to pay £330 costs and a £26 surcharge.