Here we take a look at some of the criminals locked up during the first third of the year.
All of the information below comes from either Sussex Police or our reporters attending court in person.
17. Locked up in Sussex 2022: These are some of the criminals jailed between January and April
A man who has repeatedly been found drunk on the floor in Worthing has been jailed. Gerald Burton, 64, of The Mainline Rooms, Whyke Road, Chichester, appeared at Crawley Magistrates’ Court on Thursday, January 6, and admitted a number of offences related to alcohol. He was jailed for a total of nine months. Magistrates said the offences were serious enough to warrant a prison sentence due to Burton’s record of previous offending and because further offences were committed during the operational period of a suspended sentence. Sussex Police said after the case that paramedics had responded to a report of Burton having fallen over while intoxicated in Montague Street, Worthing, on January 5. Police said Burton was abusive to those trying to help him and he was subsequently arrested for being in breach of his criminal behaviour order. He was remanded in custody and the following day, he was sentenced at Crawley Magistrates’ Court. Photo: Sussex Police
18. Locked up in Sussex 2022: These are some of the criminals jailed between January and April
The ex-headmaster of a long-closed West Sussex school has been sentenced to a total of 11 years’ imprisonment for a series of sex offences against boy pupils there, Sussex Police have said. Police said that Frank Skipwith, 81, now of Eynsham, Oxfordshire, was convicted on December 15, 2021, at Hove Crown Court, after an eight day re-trial, of indecent assault against boys at Fernden Preparatory School in Fernhurst near Midhurst. He was also convicted of indecent assaults on a boy in Reading, the police statement said. He was sentenced at Hove Crown Court on Monday, January 31. Police said that Skipwith had first been convicted on March 13, 2020, at Lewes Crown Court after a seven-week trial, of indecent assaults against boys at Fernden. It said the jury in that trial failed to agree on verdicts in relation to charges involving the other boys at Fernden, of which he has now been convicted after the re-trial, as well as being convicted of the further charges of offences in Reading. He will be a registered sex offender for life. The prosecutions, authorised by the CPS, followed an investigation by detectives from the Sussex Police complex abuse unit. Photo: Frank Skipwith at Hove Crown Court SUS-220202-145143001
19. Locked up in Sussex 2022: These are some of the criminals jailed between January and April
A man who sexually assaulted a young woman in Worthing, nearly eight years ago, has been jailed. According to Sussex Police, Robert Brown-Percival, 50, unemployed, of Colonnade Gardens, Eastbourne, admitted to sexually assaulting a woman at a flat in Eriswell Road, Worthing — where he previously lived — in July 2014. He will now spend 28 months behind bars after being sentenced at Lewes Crown Court on February 16. Brown-Percival will also be a registered sex offender for ten years, police said. Detective Constable Andy Roe, of the West Sussex Safeguarding Investigations Unit, said Brown-Percival 'took advantage' of the victim's vulnerability to 'assault her while she was asleep, for his own gratification'. Photo: Sussex Police
20. Locked up in Sussex 2022: These are some of the criminals jailed between January and April
A motorcycle rider who caused the death of his passenger while driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs in Bexhill has been jailed. Jack Stockdale, 28, of Paradise Walk in Bexhill, was sentenced to six years in prison at Lewes Crown Court on March 31 after pleading guilty to causing death by careless driving while over the limits of alcohol and drugs and while uninsured and unlicensed, police said. Stockdale was identified as the driver of a black Yamaha motorcycle that hit a lamppost on the A269 Ninfield Road, Bexhill, at 10.30pm on March 12, 2020. His pillion passenger – 27-year-old Joel Vinten from Bexhill – was airlifted to hospital but died on March 16. Photo: Sussex Police