Legal news in brief - 3 August 2012
Posted: 3 August 2012
A fan of Oxford United Football Club has been imprisoned after bringing a grenade to a match.
Carl Wells, 34, from Berinsfield in Oxfordshire, was charged with possessing a Hangar 18 smoke grenade during the Plymouth Argyle versus Oxford United match, played at Home Park, Plymouth on 21 April.
He was sentenced to two months in prison at Plymouth Magistrates’ Court, and banned from attending football matches for six years.
District judge Maurice Champion said: "This was an appalling act of utter recklessness.
"If that grenade had gone off in that stadium I can't even begin to think what would have happened."
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A woman who smashed a window at Simon Cowell’s house in West London with a brick has been given a 12-month community order.
Leanne Zaloumis, 30, admitted at a previous hearing to being in possession of a brick with the intent to cause damage to property.
Cowell alerted his staff after hearing a “loud bang” emanating from his bathroom on 24 March.
The woman was arrested after being discovered within the grounds of the property and taken to Notting Hill police station.
Zaloumis also incurred a 12-month supervision order and a restraining order against the music mogul and X-Factor judge.
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The UK newspaper group Northcliffe Media has dropped its legal action against a spoof Twitter account.
Northcliffe, owned by the Daily Mail, were hoping to unmask the person behind the @UnSteveDorkland account, which lampoons its chief executive Steve Auckland, by filing a subpoena in the US to make Twitter reveal the author’s identity.
But they have backed down after the account holder successfully challenged the order.
The owner of the account, thought to be someone previously linked to Northcliffe Media, condemned the case as “shameful and unnecessary”.