The following individuals were sentenced to prison time in November 2025.
Sutton car crash killer
Samuel Russell, 37, from Sutton, was more than 10 times over the drug-drive limit and nearly three times over the drink-drive limit on January 27 last year when he hit and killed pedestrian Steven Ward on Bakeham Lane in Englefield Green.
Paying tribute to her 62-year-old dad, Steven’s daughter Charlie said: “His loss has left a profound hole in our lives.
“He was an incredible father, husband, colleague and friend, kind, intelligent and always putting others first. Our family is devastated.”
Russell pleaded guilty to causing death by dangerous driving and possession of cocaine at Guildford Magistrates’ Court on September 30 but stated he had no memory of the crash.
He was sentenced at Guildford Crown Court to nine years and nine months in prison for causing death by dangerous driving, and a concurrent six-week term for possession of cocaine.
Read the full story – Sutton man jailed after drink and drug driving death
‘One of most prolific sex offenders ever’
Chao Xu, 33, of Glashier Street in Deptford, has been jailed for a string of offences including rape and upskirting.
The Met Police believes he is “one of the most prolific sex offenders of all time” and detectives have now appealed for hundreds of potential victims to come forward.
Xu had filmed himself “raping and sexually assaulting women who appear to be unconscious or heavily incapacitated”.
Officers said three victims of serious sexual assaults such as rape had been identified and police were seeking a further four unidentified victims.
Detectives believe the number of victims of voyeurism and upskirting to be in the hundreds, including individuals filmed without consent in Xu’s flat, at his WeWork workplace and in public spaces including London Bridge Underground station.
Xu, who has lived in the UK since 2016 and is a graduate of the University of Greenwich,
He gave guests at his university networking events a drink he called “the spring of life” containing various alcoholic substances and Chinese herbal medicines.
He placed hidden cameras in an air freshener, women’s sanitary products, a digital clock, a speaker, and under a wash basin to film his sexual abuse.
Police were first alerted to Xu’s offending after a woman reported to officers that her drink had been spiked and she had subsequently been sexually assaulted at a university networking event in June at his address.
Xu pleaded guilty to 24 sexual offences over the course of three years including rape, assault by penetration, sexual assault, upskirting, and voyeurism.
He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 14 years at Woolwich Crown Court on Friday.
Read the full story – Deptford rapist Chao Xu ‘one of most prolific sex offenders ever’
Boy stabbed to death in front of his mum
Romario Gordon, 22, stabbed 16-year-old Camron Smith in front of his mother at their Croydon home.
Gordon was part of a machete-wielding mob who barged into Camron’s house and chased him into his mother’s bedroom where he was fatally stabbed.
Earlier, they had hijacked a Toyota Prius minicab and unleashed a crimewave in Croydon as they looked for revenge for another stabbing.
Gordon, who was 17 at the time, was later seen on CCTV fleeing from the stolen taxi and disposing of a large machete in an adjacent road.
His Old Bailey trial had heard that he had left the country two days after the killing but later returned voluntarily.
Gordon was found guilty of manslaughter and was jailed for 13 years.
Read the full story – Man jailed after Camron Smith death
Paedophile priest
Anthony White, who was known as Father Tony, said his position within St Joseph’s Church in Epsom in the late 1980s to groom and sexually abuse a young boy.
Over the course of several years, White subjected the boy to repeated sexual abuse at his home but manipulated him into silence by blaming him for what had happened.
White, now 67, was jailed for 10 years in 2022 for the sexual abuse and rape of another young boy in the 1990s when he was an assistant priest at a St John the Evangelist Church in Horsham, West Sussex.
The Epsom survivor saw the press coverage of White’s 2022 conviction and found the courage to approach Sussex Police about the abuse he had suffered.
White has now been sentenced to a further three years’ imprisonment after a Guildford Crown Court jury found him guilty of indecent assault of a boy under the age of 14.
Read the full story – Epsom St Joseph’s Church former priest Father Tony jailed
Erith drug dealer
John Nwaogbo, 29, from Erith, was jailed for seven years after being caught with 35 kilos of cocaine as part of a wider drugs supply network led by a Kent dealer.
He was arrested in June 2023 at a safe house in Peacock Close in Barnet following an investigation by the Organised Crime Partnership, a joint unit of the National Crime Agency (NCA) and Metropolitan Police.
Officers found a huge stash of cocaine linked to multi-kilo supplies across London.
The drugs formed part of a wider operation orchestrated by 34-year-old Joshua Bromwell, from Harrietsham in Kent.
Bromwell used encrypted communications platform EncroChat under the handle ‘acecarlito’ to arrange cocaine deliveries to south London areas including Stockwell and the Oval between March and June 2020.
Bromwell also supplied cocaine to the London Fields gang, known for their involvement in serious violence, including firearms and knives.
Bromwell later continued his criminal activity in 2023 via WhatsApp, claiming in court to be a music producer.
US border security officers discovered his WhatsApp messages after questioning him at Atlanta Airport in June 2023, showing at least 52 kilos of cocaine supplied over 15 days.
Messages also revealed Bromwell had paid £3,500 for a hidden compartment in a vehicle used to transport drugs.
Searches of his home in September 2023 uncovered designer clothes, luxury watches including two Rolexes and an Audemars Piguet, and expensive electronics, far exceeding the £18,000 annual income declared on his tax returns.
Bromwell was convicted of two counts of conspiracy to supply class A drugs at Croydon Crown Court on January 24 following a two-week trial.
Read the full story – Erith man jailed for seven years for 35kg cocaine stash
Lying driver’s head-on crash
Dominic Johnson, 47, of England Way in New Malden, caused a head-on crash which left a man with a traumatic brain injury.
He is thought to have fallen asleep at the wheel of his Vauxhall Movano van while driving on the A141 in Cambridgeshire at just after 5am on June 29 in 2023.
He drifted into the opposite carriageway and collided with a Suzuki Vitara before leaving the carriageway and ending up about 100 feet away in a field.
The driver of the Suzuki, a 56-year-old man from Lincolnshire, was cut free from the car and taken to hospital with life-threatening head injuries.
Johnson suffered minor injuries and was arrested at the scene on suspicion of causing serious injury by dangerous driving.
A forensic collision investigator attended and noted gouge marks in the road suggested Johnson’s van had veered across the road into the opposite carriageway.
The crash was then reconstructed from the marks left on the road and clearly showed Johnson’s vehicle was on the wrong side of the road at the point of impact.
In police interview, Johnson blamed the crash on the other driver and said it was he who was in the wrong lane.
However, both vehicles involved in the crash were examined and the airbag data module was removed from Johnson’s van which revealed that at the point of impact, Johnson was steering 40 degrees to the right and he had accelerated to 50mph without braking.
Enquiries at a hotel in Coventry showed Johnson could only have had a maximum of just over four hours sleep the night before the crash.
The other driver spent two months in hospital and suffered a traumatic brain injury, numerous fractures of the skull as well as limb, pelvis, ribs and spinal fractures.
Johnson was found guilty of causing serious injury by dangerous driving and was jailed for three years and two months.
Read the full story – Lying London driver jailed for head-on A141 crash
Double murderer
Shaine March, 47, of Surrey Quays, stabbed and slashed his pregnant girlfriend to death after being released from prison for murder.
March was aged 21 when he fatally stabbed 17-year-old Andre Drummond in the neck at a McDonald’s restaurant in Denmark Hill, Camberwell, in January 2000.
Following his release on a life licence in early 2013, he was recalled to jail later that year after he stamped on the stomach of another pregnant girlfriend in July and was released again in February 2018.
Alana Adysseos, 32, was in the early stages of pregnancy with her third child when she was murdered at her home in Walthamstow on July 22, 2024.
Ms Odysseos knew about March’s murder conviction and safeguarding checks had been made by probation services.
But when the defendant said their relationship had ended amicably, no further checks were made.
Hours before killing Ms Odysseos, March argued with her about whether to abort their unborn child, with the victim heard to say: “I don’t want to kill my baby.”
March has now been jailed for life with a minimum term of 42 years for Ms Odysseos’ murder.
