Here is our monthly round-up of the criminals who have been locked up for some of the most serious crimes in Wales over the past month.
They include an intoxicated arsonist who set fire to the front door of a family's home, a 56-year-old who made crack cocaine in the kitchen of her home and sold it to addicts through the window, and a man who smashed the window of his ex-partner's home and pointed at gun at her and her daughter.
There was also a woman who stabbed herself and then pointed the finger of blame at her former partner - leading to his arrest by armed police.
Here are the criminals sent to prison during October and their crimes:
Mark Saunders
Parents had to rescue their son from their burning home after the intoxicated arsonist set fire to their front door. The family thought they were "going to die" but were left unscathed after a neighbour alerted them and contained the fire with a hose.
Saunders, 36, stole a petrol can and poured it on the door of a house in Caerphilly on January 24 before setting it alight. The occupants Joshua Callaghan and Sinead Burgwyn and their seven-year-old son woke to find their home covered in smoke.
Denzil Goodridge
Goodridge smashed the front window of an ex-partner's house and pointed a realistic-looking Glock handgun at the terrified woman and her daughter inside.
He was then seen to take aim at the people in room, causing them to flee to the rear of the property in terror. The firearm has never been found by police, and its whereabouts remain unknown.
The defendant's barrister told the court the incident was an "aberration" for his 39-year-old client who he said had many positive qualities and was a respected member of his local boxing club.
Jayne Jones
The 56-year-old made crack cocaine in the kitchen of her home and sold it to addicts through the window.
When police raided Jones' house they found a stash of high purity cocaine worth almost £9,000 along with rocks of crack, dealer's lists, and a burner phone. Sending her to prison, a judge told her that Class A drugs destroy lives and she said the amount of cocaine found at Jones' home gave a "snapshot" of the scale of the defendant's operation.
Michael Stanley
The 33-year-old was under the influence of drugs while driving when he crashed into a car and injured a four-year-old boy and his family. Stanley collided with an oncoming car after he overtook one vehicle on a bend the A493 near Tywyn.
He did not have a driving licence and had been driving up to 90mph on a rural road with a 60mph limit.
Steven Thomas
The driver pursued and deliberately knocked down a cyclist leaving the biker paralysed from the waist down. Thomas was at the wheel of a stolen SUV when he ran down Kyler Brophy outside a Swansea supermarket before running off.
He was initially charged with attempted murder for the shocking incident which was seemingly sparked by a "grievance" between the two men.
Debra Robbins
The trusted office manager with a small company spent years stealing tens of thousands of pounds from the firm.
Robbins was responsible for paying wages and suppliers, doing the accounts, filing, and general admin, but abused her position to help herself to more than £63,000. The thievery and fraud was only discovered when she left her job and a replacement found the books did not balance.
Dalton Jefferies
He forced an eight-year-old girl to drink washing-up liquid and tried to strangle her mother. Jefferies caused his former partner physical and psychological harm by demeaning her in front of her friends and banning her from taking her phone with her when she went out of the room.
The 22-year-old also tried to strangle the woman and rubbed himself with sandpaper before blaming her for making him do it.
Kyle Parsons and Ludvik Rac
The teenage passengers repeatedly stabbed a cabbie and left him lying in a pool of blood in the street. Only emergency first aid by a man living nearby and the swift action of paramedics and doctors saved the taxi driver's life.
One of the teen thugs went on to boast to friends and family about having stabbed the man, and even posted a video of himself rapping about the attack on social media site Instagram. The taxi driver later said that as he lay bleeding on the ground waiting for the ambulance to come, he thought he was going to die. Read what sentence they got here.
Ricci Davies
The pub drinker punched a woman to the nose and wielded a knife on a night out fuelled by cocaine and Xanax.
Davies visited the Pontlottyn Wetherspoon pub in Abertillery at about 10.30pm on July 16, asking other customers: "Where's the fight?" He was behaving in a "rowdy manner" and sweating "profusely" according to a witness, Cardiff Crown Court heard.
Jennifer Nicklin and Alexandra Fanthome
The two women falsely imprisoned a teenager after claiming he had stolen money from them, before they stabbed his hand and discussed killing him.
Swansea Crown Court heard how Fanthome and Nicklin invited the teen back to take crack cocaine and cannabis together at their home in Ammanford. Read how long they were sentenced to here.
Georgie Cox
The despicable robber took a bike and an iPhone from a man with learning difficulties who he threatened to punch in the face. And then after stealing the phone he smashed it to smithereens.
The 20-year-old targeted his victim, who has a speech and hearing impediment, having known about his disabilities. He cornered him in an in Brackla, Bridgend, and even approached the victim's friend and told him of his plan to rob him.
Tyler O'Connell and Caine Wells
A woman's 50th birthday party at a rugby club ended in a mass brawl which saw her son stamping on a man's leg after he had been knocked unconscious by another. The victim broke his leg which required surgery and he now walks with crutches.
Wells, 30, and O'Connell, 29, wounded their victim Dean Lock at Barry Rugby Club on February 29, 2020, after an altercation broke out in the foyer. Footage of the incident was played during a sentencing hearing at Cardiff Crown Court. More details here.
Natalie Collins
Collins stabbed herself and then pointed the finger of blame at her former partner - leading to his arrest by armed police.
The self-inflicted violence and false report of a serious assault was part of a campaign of harassment carried out by Collins against her ex-boyfriend and his new partner.
Bilal Zawi
The restaurant worker launched a campaign of harassment against his boss and accused him of running a brothel following a row over work documents.
Zawi went on to attack his housemate with a kitchen knife, leaving his victim with scratches on his face. Swansea Crown Court heard the 21-year-old had a traumatic upbringing in Libya during that country's civil war before crossing to Italy by boat as a teenager then making his way through Switzerland, Germany and France before getting to the UK.
Keith Bold
The "committed paedophile" engaged in vile online conversations about child rape and sent indecent images to an undercover police officer.
Bold - who also uses the name Stuart Jones - met what he believed was a fellow paedophile on a Russian website where users upload and share images of child sex abuse. Bold was using the name Stefan Vilchek during the exchanges but the officer suspected it was in fact the defendant, a registered sex offender with a long history of online sexual offences involving children. Part of that offending saw the 59-year-old making numerous trips to Ukraine.
Kyle Jones
The violent bully strangled his pregnant partner and placed her father in a chokehold after wrongly accusing her of cheating on him. After their child was born he hit his former partner in the face and sent foul mouthed messages to her.
The 25-year-old assaulted his teenage ex girlfriend at her home near Mountain Ash on July 9, when she was eight months pregnant. He later assaulted her father as he tried to protect his daughter, a sentencing heard. Read the sentence here.
Jordan Gingell
The drunk man hit a car passenger with a pint glass after being refused a lift.
The 26-year-old had been "drinking for some time" when he approached a car in June this year and asked for a lift before hitting the man in the passenger seat with a pint glass he had been holding. Gingell was sentenced at Cardiff Crown Court after admitting causing grievous bodily harm without intent.
Ryan Lewis
He became angry over a noise complaint made about him by a neighbour and threatened to kill the person responsible whilst wielding a weapon.
Swansea Crown Court heard how Ryan Lewis learned that he was to be fined after a neighbour, who lived within a shared housing building at Swansea's Penmaen Terrace, run by Coastal Housing, lodged a complaint over noise coming from his property.
Umair Farooq
A woman was assaulted by a stranger who had let himself into her hotel room in a terrifying attack.
Farooq made his victim and a friend "uncomfortable" by watching them in the hotel bar before getting access to her room and subjecting her to the terrifying assault while she slept. Read the sentence here.
Tyrrell Webbe
The teaching assistant found with almost £500 of cocaine claimed he was taking drugs to a friend's party but texts on his phone revealed he had been dealing. He was caught by police after he was seen throwing a package into a garden.
The 32-year-old was spotted by police at 2am in Cardiff on March 20 last year and upon seeing the police vehicle, the defendant dropped something into a nearby garden. He was spoken to by police, who recovered a zip lock bag containing wraps of white powder.
Ian Wakeham
A love rival was stabbed by Wakeham with a kitchen knife after he revealed he was having an affair with his girlfriend. The fight spilled out into a communal area of a flat with a large crowd of neighbours witnessing the assault.
The 38-year-old wounded Darren Atkins with the weapon near a block of flats in Cardiff on New Year's Day, leaving the victim with six stab wounds. The incident came about when Wakeham was involved in an altercation with his then girlfriend, during which Mr Atkins arrived at the flat and told the defendant he had been sleeping with his partner.
Ethan Owen
The sexual deviant sent photos of himself holding his penis to a 12-year-old girl and threatened his probation officer saying he knew people who knew about her personal life. He also sent threatening sexual messages to a woman while pretending to be a school attendance officer.
The 28-year-old, of Vale of Glamorgan, has a long history of sexual offences and has been made subject to a Sexual Harm Prevention Order for life. The first of the latest offences took place on November 28 last year when a woman discovered images of the defendant on her 12-year-old daughter's phone. Read his sentence here.
John Richards, Daniel O'Hara and Richard Watkins
A conspiracy to supply cocaine worth up to £1.6m saw kilos of the class A drug being trafficked from the West Midlands to south Wales. The operation involved parties communicating over Encrochat phones with couriers delivering the drugs and hundreds and thousands of pounds in cash.
John Richards, 39, led the south Wales end of the operation which saw him contact Daniel O'Hara, 47, who drove from the Midlands to Ross-on-Wye where Richard Watkins, 42, would pick up the drugs in exchange for cash. Between March and May 2020, 10.5kg of high purity cocaine was sold to Richards and £320,000 was provided in exchange. Read the sentencing here.
Paul Allen
The paedophile raped and sexually abused a young boy and went on to sexually abuse another child after he was released on bail and under investigation. He was told by a judge he had an "insatiable interest" in child sex abuse.
Allen, 60, told his vulnerable victims not to tell anyone about the abuse otherwise they would get into trouble. The assaults left one victim suicidal and he attempted to take his own life by jumping off a bridge. Read the sentencing here.
Alex Preece
The known dealer sold heroin right in front of police near Cardiff city centre. Preece admitted selling the heroin to a user at Tyndall Street oblivious to the fact officers from South Wales Police were yards from him, Newport Crown Court heard.
Gary Rees
The dad carried out a "vindictive" attack on the van his self-employed son used for his work Gary Rees slashed the tyres of the vehicle and stabbed its seat belts with scissors before stealing of equipment from the back.
He went on to send a series of unpleasant messages to his daughter about the death of a loved-one in breach of a restraining order.
Sending the 50-year-old Llanelli man to prison, a judge warned him that if he continued to offend against his family in ways that put them in fear, he could be slapped with a court order which banned him from going to certain areas of the town Read the sentencing here.
Jonathan Harris
The child sex offender hid his past to go on a caravanning holiday with a friend and her young son.
Harris was also a regular visitor to the family's home, including on occasions sleeping there overnight. However, the 27-year-old is banned from having unsupervised contact with boys under 16 unless the child's parents know about his past conviction for causing a child to engage in sexual activity. Read his sentencing here.
Gary Fisher
The paedophile subjected a young boy to years of sickening sexual abuse. The victim suffered in silence for more than two decades until he heard that his abuser had been convicted of online child sex offences, and he decided to go to the police to report what had happened to him as a youngster.
Fisher has now been handed a 20-year extended sentence as a dangerous offender for the abuse his carried out on his young victim in the 1990s, abuse which the victim said had stolen his innocence.
Tristan Levene
The drug dealer was with up to £23,000 of heroin and cocaine which he stored at his home. He had previously been jailed for more than three years for possession with intent to supply class A drugs.
The 26-year-old was visited by police after they executed a warrant at his home in Barry on September 2 but his mother was the only person at the property. A search carried out in the defendant's bedroom resulted in police finding rocks, cannabis bud, scales, phones, diazepam tablets, and a small amount of cash. Read the sentencing here.
Rowland Lea
The "steaming drunk" thug racially abused and attacked two bouncers after being thrown out of a bar. Lea threw punches and chairs before grabbing a metal pole and using it as a weapon - all the while shouting vile racial slurs.
A recorder described the violence which played out in front of members of revellers on Swansea's busy Wind Street as a "disgraceful incident of public disorder", and he told both men they were old enough to know better.
Ashley Bevan and Siobhan Clayton
The thieves stole a man's moped and keys from the centre of Swansea and then rushed to his house and burgled it.
Bevan and Clayton stashed the stolen machine then hopped in a taxi and went straight to their victim's home and broke in, helping themselves to jewellery, bank cards and other items. Swansea Crown Court heard both the defendants' lives have been blighted by their abuse of drugs.
William Smith
The drug dealer was pulled over by police after a member of the public spotted him sniffing something in a supermarket car park. On the evening of September 8, police in Pembrokeshire stopped a Citroen van in Tenby shortly after 6.30pm.
The driver, Smith, was asked to leave the vehicle by police before providing a drug swipe, which returned positive results for cocaine and cannabis.
Scott Banks
The paedophile manipulated and threatened a young girl who he was subjecting to sex acts. Banks abused the child over a prolonged period before claiming that he loved her.
Swansea Crown Court heard the offending has had a significant impact on the child, leaving her suffering with anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder, and leading her to struggle at school as well as to self-harm
Keiron David
Police found drugs stashed in the bottom of a wardrobe and in a van when they searched a house in Swansea. Officers raided a house in Creswell Road, along with two others in the Clase area of the city on the morning of April 30, 2021.
David, now aged 22, was not at home at the time but his mother was. A search was carried out by police who found 28 bags of cannabis, weighing a total of 21g, hidden at the bottom of a wardrobe in David’s bedroom.
George Tetzlaff
A burglar broke into a house and stole a new £1,000 designer Burberry bag which he gave to his girlfriend after an argument.
Tetzlaff also stole documents including a passport along a laptop computer which held vital university course work.
Usman Khan
The drug dealer who was caught with cocaine by police on two occasions had "gone up in the world" in the drugs supply chain. He asked a judge not to send him to prison due to his role as a carer for his girlfriend.
The 25-year-old was first arrested on September 14, 2019, when he was stopped by police in Cardiff Bay while the passenger of a BMW. He ran away from the car but was chased and found hiding in a garden. He was searched and found in possession of four bags containing 1.7g of cocaine, three bags containing 0.86g of cocaine, £1,110 in cash, digital scales and counterfeit currency.
Gavin Willie
The London drug dealer caught doing 100mph on the M4 with £16,000 in cash, a large stash of drugs, and a pick axe handle in his car claimed he had visited Swansea to buy a dog.
However, messages found on Gavin Willie's phone showed he was involved in buying and selling cannabis in kilo quantities as well as in dealing directly to users. Sat beside Willie in the VW car was his partner Jemay Abdullah who helped him with his drug dealing operation.
Matthew Scriven
He armed himself with a "fearsome-looking" kitchen knife and threatened to slit a neighbour's throat in front of her children. The terrifying early-evening incident saw police rush to the housing estate where it was playing out and draw their Taser stun guns.
Scriven's advocate told Cardiff Crown Court that the father-of-two had brandished the weapon to show he wasn't scared of the other family with whom he was in dispute. Sending the defendant to prison a judge said people carrying knives in public had become an epidemic worthy of a deterrent sentence.
Rhys Hall
Hall was drawn into cocaine dealing by his dad returned to supplying the drug to pay off his jailed father's debts.
The 21-year-old has now joined his dad behind bars after resuming the drugs trade just a matter of months after being handed a suspended sentence.
A judge said it was very sad to see the situation the defendant was in, and he told him he had not only let himself down but his family too.
Paul Walters
The Swansea man felt unable to say no to a Liverpool drugs gang and ended up dealing more than eight kilos of heroin for them.
Police came upon Walters by chance while carrying out a welfare check on other people living in the bedsit where the 66-year-old resided. The defendant volunteered to the officers that he had been working for a Liverpudlian drug dealer for a number of years.
Daniel Joseph
The drug dealer was wearing a balaclava when he tried to escape through a kitchen window after a house was raided by police. He and others were found in possession of heroin, cocaine and cannabis.
The 22-year-old was in a house in Cardiff raided on February 28 as part of an executed warrant. The defendant and two other men were searched, resulting in the discovery of drugs and £1,835 in cash.
Anthony Kinsler
The paedophile sent videos of himself masturbating to who he thought was a 12-year-old boy. Upon his arrest he was found in possession of photos of child sex abuse including children as young as six.
Kinsler, 51, spoke to an online decoy pretending to be a 12-year-old boy named Charlie on a social media app called Kik in May 2021. He made sexual comments during their conversations, and when the decoy spoke about school, he told him of fantasies of fondling him in a classroom and of having sex with the child in the school toilets. Read how long he was sentenced to here.
Matthew O'Donoghue
The "sexual predator" enticed a young girl into his car before driving her to a popular park, offering her cocaine, and then sexually assaulting her.
When tracked down by police hours after the attack, O'Donoghue claimed the schoolgirl was making a malicious complaint about him, saying he had been in a relationship for 12 years and had no reason to touch anyone else. Read how long he was sentenced to here.
Gary Matthews
The burglar broke into a Greggs bakery punched and strangled his former partner days after he was released from prison. He hit her so hard she fell back and hit her head on a coffee table.
The 35-year-old burgled a Greggs shop in Tredegar overnight on September 29 and 30, stealing £50 from charity boxes. He was caught escaping from the shop on CCTV.
Wayne Thomas
He breached a restraining order before knocking out four of his on-and-off former partner's teeth during an argument.
The 46-year-old, of Monnow Way, Bettws, Newport, had been served a restraining order against his ex, but the pair re-entered a relationship following his release from custody earlier this year, Cardiff Crown Court heard.
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