A gardener who terrified female drivers heading home late at night in Somerset while wearing a gimp suit has been found guilty of public order offences.
Joshua Hunt was seen by one woman writhing around on the ground, while another was left shaking and crying.
The 32-year-old was fined £100 and ordered to pay £200 compensation to each of his three victims and £620 prosecution costs after being convicted Bristol Magistrates’ Court on Friday of two counts of intentionally causing harassment, alarm or distress.
The incidents took place in the evening of May 7 and just after May 9 in Bleadon, near Weston-super-Mare.
After his arrest Hunt told police: “I am not a gimp, I do not own a gimp suit. I am not in a gimp suit.”
‘Writhing and crawling’
Motorist Lucy Lodge, in a written statement, said she was on her own when she drove home through Bleadon and saw a figure moving on the ground.
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She said: “He was writhing and crawling as if in a military fashion. I could see the person was wearing very tight, dark clothing and had a mask on their face.
“The mask was dark and very tight and two white crosses where the eyes should be. My first thought was it could be a possible abduction and the person was trying to get me out of my car.
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“It was terrifying although I had only seen them for a few seconds.”
The witness told the court she thought she was witnessing an abduction when she saw the man on the ground.
She added: “I had never seen anything like this before. I feel scared and I never want to see this thing again due to the fright it gave me. I didn’t sleep more than three hours that night.”
Shortly after midnight on May 9, Samantha Brown was driving from work with her sister-in-law and another colleague when she saw a man dressed all in black with a face mask, the court heard.
Following reports of the second incident, the court heard police went to Bleadon and spotted a white Berlingo van in a field which was reversing and decided to stop it.
PC Declan Coppock spoke to the defendant, who was wearing grey trousers and a black hooded top, and arrested him.
“I noticed his skin was extremely wet and damp – suggesting he had been lying on the side of the road,” the officer said.
Hunt told him: “I am not dangerous, I am a normal person, I have got a few problems.”
A search of the van found Hunt was not wearing a T-shirt or any underwear and inside his van was a collection of wet black clothing, women’s tights, face masks and gloves. There was also neon white paint used for drawing on a mask, the court heard.
Hunt told police during an interview that his mental health had been in “crisis” over problems with his medication and wanted to take his own life, the court heard.
“I stood in the road because I wanted to kill myself and I never intended to scare anybody,” he told officers. “I am crying out for help and need help with my mental health.”
A search of Hunt’s home in Claverham uncovered a journal in which he had written a story about someone called Jack who purchases a black rubber suit and mask with white paint on the mask.
He had also done internet searches in 2022 and 2023 about the “Somerset Gimp” and the “Gimp of Cleeve”, the court heard.
‘I hated myself with the way I looked’
Hunt, a self-employed gardener, claimed he would go out at night and change into black clothing to go “mudding”.
“Which a lot of people wouldn’t understand, which is something I do to get covered in mud which is another reason I was there as it is close to the estuary where there is mud,” he added.
Hunt also told the court on the two nights he had been seen on the side of the road he had wanted to kill himself by being hit by a car.
“It never entered my head that what I was doing was frightening people,” he said.
“I apologise to those people – I agree what I was doing was frightening but hand on my heart I never intended to cause them harassment, alarm or distress.”
Lucy Letby’s father threatened a hospital boss while the trust was examining claims that the neonatal nurse was attacking babies in her care, an inquiry has heard.
Tony Chambers, the former chief executive of the Countess of Chester Hospital, described how Mr Letby became very upset during a meeting about the allegations surrounding his daughter in December 2016.
Mr Chambers led the NHS trust where neonatal nurse Letby, who fatally attacked babies between June 2015 and June 2016, worked.
It was the following year in 2017 that the NHS trust alerted the police about the suspicions Letby had been deliberately harming babies on the unit.
“Her father was very angry, he was making threats that would have just made an already difficult situation even worse,” Mr Chambers told the Thirlwall Inquiry.
“He was threatening guns to my head and all sorts of things.”
Earlier, Mr Chambers apologised to the families of the victims of Letby, but said the failure to “identify what was happening” sooner was “not a personal” one.
He was questioned on how he and colleagues responded when senior doctors raised concerns about Letby, 34, who has been sentenced to 15 whole-life terms for seven murders and seven attempted murders.
Mr Chambers started his evidence by saying: “I just want to offer my heartfelt condolences to all of the families whose babies are at the heart of this inquiry.
“I can’t imagine the impact it has had on their lives.
“I am truly sorry for the pain that may have been prolonged by any decisions that I took in good faith.”
He was then pressed on how much personal responsibility he should take for failings at the trust that permitted Letby to carry on working after suspicions had been raised with him.
“I wholeheartedly accept that the operation of the Trust’s systems failed and there were opportunities missed to take earlier steps to identify what was happening,” he said.
“It was not a personal failing,” he added.
“I have reflected long and hard as to why the board was not aware of the unexplained increase in mortality.”
Mr Chambers also said he believed the hospital should have worked more closely with the families involved, saying “on reflection the communications with the families could have and should have been better”.
The Thirlwall Inquiry is examining events at the Countess of Chester Hospital, following the multiple convictions of Letby.
Earlier this week her former boss, Alison Kelly, told the inquiry she “didn’t get everything right” but had the “best intentions” in dealing with concerns about the baby killer.
Ms Kelly was director of nursing, as well as lead for children’s safeguarding, at Countess of Chester Hospital when Letby attacked the babies.
She was in charge when Letby was moved to admin duties in July 2016 after consultants said they were worried she might be harming babies.
However, police were not called until May 2017 – following hospital bosses commissioning several reviews into the increased mortality rate.
A £50,000 reward is being offered over the unsolved theft of a batch of early Scottish coins that were stolen 17 years ago.
More than 1,000 coins from the 12th and 13th centuries were taken from the home of Lord and Lady Stewartby in Broughton, near Peebles in the Scottish Borders, in June 2007.
The stolen haul spans a period of almost 150 years, from around 1136 when the first Scottish coins were minted during the reign of David I up to around 1280 and the reign of Alexander III.
The late Lord Stewartby entrusted the remainder of his collection to The Hunterian Museum at the University of Glasgow in 2017, but the missing coins have never been found.
Crimestoppers announced its maximum reward of £20,000 – which is available for three months until 27 February – in a fresh appeal on Wednesday. An anonymous donor is helping to boost the total reward amount to £50,000.
It is hoped it will prompt people to come forward with information which could lead to the recovery of the missing treasures and the conviction of those responsible for the crime.
Angela Parker, national manager at Crimestoppers Scotland, said Lord Stewartby’s haul was the “best collection of Scottish coins ever assembled by a private individual”.
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Jesper Ericsson, curator of numismatics at The Hunterian, described the medieval coins as smaller than a modern penny.
He added: “Portraits of kings and inscriptions may be worn down to almost nothing and the coins might be oddly shaped, perhaps even cut in half or quarters.
“You could fit 1,000 into a plastic takeaway container, so they don’t take up a lot of space. They may look unremarkable, but these coins are the earliest symbols of Scotland’s monetary independence.
“They are of truly significant national importance. Their safe return will not only benefit generations of scholars, researchers, students and visitors to come, but will also right a wrong that Lord Stewartby never got to see resolved before he died.”