Blackpool: From the courts 01-03-18

James Farquhar, 59, assault and failing to comply with a Sex Offenders’ Register order

A convicted rapist assaulted his girlfriend after she ended their relationship on finding out about his past.

James Farquhar, who is on the Sex Offenders Register for life after raping a woman and being sentenced to 12 years imprisonment in 2005, stabbed at his partner with a carving knife and pushed her into the fridge at her Blackpool home.

Farquhar, 59, of Ford Lane, Liverpool, a trader at Bolton Market, appeared before the court via the videolink from Preston Prison.

He pleaded guilty to assault and failing to comply with a Sex Offenders Register order by not notifying police of an address he had stayed for at seven days or longer within a 12 months period.

Farquhar was sentenced to 18 weeks jail suspended for 18 months with up to 25 days rehabilitation to be supervised by the probation service, put on a 12 weeks tagged curfew from 7pm to 6am and ordered to pay £250 compensation to the complainant with £85 costs plus £115 victims’ surcharge.

He was put him on an indefinite restraining order which bans him from contacting the victim and entering Rosedale Avenue, Marton, or the alley behind it.

Prosecutor, Pam Smith, told magistrates Farquhar’s partner said they were together for about 12 months and he lived at her home in Blackpool,

On February 11, around 11.50pm they argued and he refused to leave her home when she asked him to. He also threatened to kill her and her son, refused to give her phone or let her leave the address.

He then threatened her with a carving knife before pushing her into the fridge on which she hit her head and injured her hand.

In a victim’s impact statement, the complainant said: “I believe this threat to kill me and my son to be true and I fear for our lives.”

Farquhar had lived at his partner’s Blackpool address for more than a week but had not told police, as he was required to do under the Sex Offenders Registration rules.

Craig Sykes, 48, drink-driving, no licence or insurance and failing to stop for a police officer

A drunken grandfather was described as being all over the road during a police chase after he refused to stop his van.

Officers pursued Craig Sykes from St Annes to Peel and saw him repeatedly veering across the white line and hitting the kerb.

He was stopped and found to be almost three times over the limit, after crashing into a fence, driving back onto the road and pulling into his driveway.

Sykes, a 48-year-old site managing joiner, of Peel Road, Peel, pleaded guilty to driving with excess alcohol without insurance or a licence and failing to stop for a police officer.

He was jailed for six weeks, banned from the road for 26 months and ordered to pay £85 costs with £115 victims’ surcharge.

Prosecutor, Pam Smith, said police saw Sykes driving a Ford Transit on Park Road, St Annes, in the early hours of February 10, where he crossed the centre white line. He was followed to Ballam Road, Ballam, where he again crossed the centre line and hit the kerb.

Police had put on their car’s blue lights and sirens but Sykes refused to stop. He was described as veering all over Peel Road before going off the road hitting a fence and returning to the road to drive on.

A breath test showed 102 micrograms of alcohol in his body - 35 is the limit.

At the time of the offence Sykes was on a suspended prison sentence for an offence of disqualified driving.

Daniel Hammond, 25, giving a prison inmate a mobile phone and taking a phone into prison

A plumber at a Lancashire prison has been sacked after committing the crime of giving an inmate a mobile phone.

Daniel Hammond also carried out another offence at the jail because he also took his own mobile into Kirkham Prison.

Hammond, 25, of King George Avenue, North Shore, pleaded guilty to giving a prisoner a phone and taking a mobile into a prison.

The court was told that Hammond, the resident plumber at Kirkham Prison, was working when an inmate asked him to retrieve a mobile which was hidden in the jail.

Hammond used the light on his own phone to see what he was doing and retrieved the mobile which he then gave to the inmate.

Defence lawyer, Trevor Colebourne, said his client had been gullible and succumbed to the sob story the prisoner gave him that he needed the phone to call his child.

Hammond was bailed to March 27 for sentence at Preston Crown Court by District Judge Jeff Brailsford.