Man faces jail after driving military truck through police road block in ‘reign of terror’
A man is facing jail after he drove a US Army truck into nearly a dozen vehicles following an argument with his partner, a court has heard.
Geoffrey Marshall drove the two-and-a-half ton truck at his partner’s home, wrecking her car in the process.
The 41-year-old then went on a “reign of terror”, driving the truck through a police road block, destroying four Avon and Somerset Police vehicles and damaging several other cars parked nearby.
Marshall was only arrested after police negotiators persuaded him not to jump from a bridge over the M5 motorway, North Somerset Magistrates’ Court heard.
The incident began on the afternoon of Sunday 10 September with a row between Marshall and his partner, Kathryn Marshall Lam, at their home near Taunton, Somerset, over text messages she found on his mobile phone.
Paul Kelly, prosecuting, said Ms Marshall Lam left the property, fearing for her safety, and called the police.
When officers arrived at their home they found the defendant already behind the wheel of the 1958 M35 truck.
Mr Kelly said “they tried to reason with the defendant” but “these negotiations have failed” and Marshall “decided to start driving the vehicle”.
“He has driven the vehicle into the property owned by Kathryn Marshall Lam, causing damage to the vehicle parked in front as well as quite a lot of structural damage to that property,” he said.
“He has then made off from that location and driven at police cars, causing extensive damage to four police vehicles who were trying to block him.”
After hitting several police vehicles, the truck, in the left of the picture, crashed into another car
It then struck a lamp post and for sale sign
‘Damage to a large amount of parked vehicles’
Marshall then left the site and drove to the M5 motorway, got out of the vehicle and then on to a bridge crossing the motorway and “threatened suicide”.
Police negotiated with him and were able to get him down before they arrested him.
“There was damage to a large amount of parked vehicles, which are reflected in the charges before the court,” Mr Kelly added.
“During the argument with Ms Marshall Lam, he took her phone and smashed it, causing a small amount of glass to go into her hand. He has then thrown away her phone into a river.”
‘Deliberate and prolonged’ dangerous driving
Mr Kelly described Marshall’s dangerous driving as “deliberate and prolonged” and said the sentencing guidelines carry a starting point of 18 months in jail.
“The Crown suggest that what started as a reasonably low-level domestic dispute has escalated massively into what the Crown suggest is a reign of terror in relation to driving the large military vehicle, not only into the property of the complainant but also a large stretch of motorway involving four police vehicles and a number of civilian vehicles that were heavily damaged,” he said.
“Therefore, we would suggest that the defendant at this current stage is unable to act rationally.”
Marshall admits charges of dangerous driving and assault
Marshall admitted 12 charges of criminal damage, including destroying four police vehicles and his partner’s Range Rover, as well as damaging her home, her iPhone, a council lamp post and four other cars. He also admitted charges of dangerous driving and assault by beating.
Nigel Yeo, defending, did not apply for bail.
Magistrates remanded Marshall into custody, ordering pre-sentence reports and imposing an interim driving ban.
Presiding justice Trevor Morgan said: “This was a reign of terror with what was damaged by the vehicle you were driving.”
Marshall was remanded in custody and was scheduled to appear at Taunton Crown Court on 13 October for sentencing.
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK.
The UK-US trade deal has been signed and is “done”, US President Donald Trump has said as he met Sir Keir Starmer at the G7 summit.
The US president told reporters in Canada: “We signed it, and it’s done. It’s a fair deal for both. It’ll produce a lot of jobs, a lot of income.”
Sir Keir said the document “implements” the deal to cut tariffs on cars and aerospace, describing it as a “really important agreement”.
“So this is a very good day for both of our countries – a real sign of strength,” the prime minister added.
Mr Trump added that the UK was “very well protected” against any future tariffs, saying: “You know why? Because I like them”.
However, he did not say whether levies on British steel exports to the US would be set to 0%, saying “we’re gonna let you have that information in a little while”.
Mr Trump also praised Sir Keir as a “great” prime minister, adding: “We’ve been talking about this deal for six years, and he’s done what they haven’t been able to do.”
He added: “We’re very longtime partners and allies and friends and we’ve become friends in a short period of time.
“He’s slightly more liberal than me to put it mildly… but we get along.”
Sir Keir added that “we make it work”.
As the pair exited a mountain lodge in the Canadian Rockies where the summit is being held, Mr Trump held up a physical copy of the trade agreement to show reporters.
Several leaves of paper fell from the binding, and Sir Keir quickly stooped to pick them up, saying: “A very important document.”
Sir Keir Starmer picks up paper from the UK-US trade deal after Donald Trump dropped it at the G7 summit. Pic: Reuters
The US president also appeared to mistakenly refer to a “trade agreement with the European Union” at one point as he stood alongside the British prime minister.
Mr Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs on countries in April. At the time, he announced 10% “reciprocal” rates on all UK exports – as well as separately announced 25% levies on cars and steel.
Read more:
G7 summit ‘all about the Donald’ – analysis
Scrambled G7 agenda as leaders race to de-escalate Israel-Iran conflict
In a joint televised phone call in May, Sir Keir and Mr Trump announced the UK and US had agreed on a trade deal – but added the details were being finalised.
Ahead of the G7 summit, the prime minister said he would meet Mr Trump for “one-on-one” talks, and added the agreement “really matters for the vital sectors that are safeguarded under our deal, and we’ve got to implement that”.
Whitehall officials tried to convince Michael Gove to go to court to cover up the grooming scandal in 2011, Sky News can reveal.
Dominic Cummings, who was working for Lord Gove at the time, has told Sky News that officials in the Department for Education (DfE) wanted to help efforts by Rotherham Council to stop a national newspaper from exposing the scandal.
In an interview with Sky News, Mr Cummings said that officials wanted a “total cover-up”.
Politics latest: Grooming gangs findings unveiled
The revelation shines a light on the institutional reluctance of some key officials in central government to publicly highlight the grooming gang scandal.
In 2011, Rotherham Council approached the Department for Education asking for help following inquiries by The Times. The paper’s then chief reporter, the late Andrew Norfolk, was asking about sexual abuse and trafficking of children in Rotherham.
The council went to Lord Gove’s Department for Education for help. Officials considered the request and then recommended to Lord Gove’s office that the minister back a judicial review which might, if successful, stop The Times publishing the story.
Lord Gove rejected the request on the advice of Mr Cummings. Sources have independently confirmed Mr Cummings’ account.
Education Secretary Michael Gove in 2011. Pic: PA
Mr Cummings told Sky News: “Officials came to me in the Department of Education and said: ‘There’s this Times journalist who wants to write the story about these gangs. The local authority wants to judicially review it and stop The Times publishing the story’.
“So I went to Michael Gove and said: ‘This council is trying to actually stop this and they’re going to use judicial review. You should tell the council that far from siding with the council to stop The Times you will write to the judge and hand over a whole bunch of documents and actually blow up the council’s JR (judicial review).’
“Some officials wanted a total cover-up and were on the side of the council…
“They wanted to help the local council do the cover-up and stop The Times’ reporting, but other officials, including in the DfE private office, said this is completely outrageous and we should blow it up. Gove did, the judicial review got blown up, Norfolk stories ran.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Grooming gangs victim speaks out
The judicial review wanted by officials would have asked a judge to decide about the lawfulness of The Times’ publication plans and the consequences that would flow from this information entering the public domain.
A second source told Sky News that the advice from officials was to side with Rotherham Council and its attempts to stop publication of details it did not want in the public domain.
One of the motivations cited for stopping publication would be to prevent the identities of abused children entering the public domain.
There was also a fear that publication could set back the existing attempts to halt the scandal, although incidents of abuse continued for many years after these cases.
Sources suggested that there is also a natural risk aversion amongst officials to publicity of this sort.
Read more on grooming gangs:
What we do and don’t know from the data
A timeline of the scandal
Mr Cummings, who ran the Vote Leave Brexit campaign and was Boris Johnson’s right-hand man in Downing Street, has long pushed for a national inquiry into grooming gangs to expose failures at the heart of government.
He said the inquiry, announced today, “will be a total s**tshow for Whitehall because it will reveal how much Whitehall worked to try and cover up the whole thing.”
He also described Mr Johnson, with whom he has a long-standing animus, as a “moron’ for saying that money spent on inquiries into historic child sexual abuse had been “spaffed up the wall”.
Asked by Sky News political correspondent Liz Bates why he had not pushed for a public inquiry himself when he worked in Number 10 in 2019-20, Mr Cummings said Brexit and then COVID had taken precedence.
“There are a million things that I wanted to do but in 2019 we were dealing with the constitutional crisis,” he said.
The Department for Education and Rotherham Council have been approached for comment.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike