News

Pair guilty of ‘sordid’ insurance scam

Published

12 years ago

November 4, 2013

A WOMAN from south Pembrokeshire and a man from Carmarthenshire admitted an attempt to defraud the Tesco Car Insurance Company at Haverfordwest Magistrates Court on Tuesday.
Helen Jane Arthur, 43, of Ridgeway, Saundersfoot, and Paul Biella, 26, of College Square, Llanelli, stood in the dock together as they both entered guilty pleas to fraud by false representation, contrary to the Fraud Act 1996.
CPS Prosecutor Gerald Neave told the court that the co-defendants had “met by chance” at the Cross Roads service station in Kilgetty.
Gerald Neave explained: “Arthur had pulled into the garage in her BMW X5. As she was buying petrol, co-defendant Biella noticed the for sale sign in the car window. He offered Arthur £4,000 for the car, but she felt this was not enough and they could not agree a price.”
He added: “Several weeks later when times were hard, a friend suggested to Arthur that she should accept the offer and she searched through her mobile phone to find his number and then eventually got into contact with him.”
Mr. Neave continued: “However, on contacting the co-defendant rather than offering the £4,000 he said that if Arthur paid him £500 he would arrange for the car to be ‘stolen’ and she could claim for the loss of the car against her Tesco car insurance policy.”
“They agreed on this plan of action, and Biella affixed new number plates to the car and collected it from Saundersfoot” Mr. Neave told the court: “At 4.15pm on June 28, Arthur called the police and reported her vehicle stolen. PC Jones attended and took a report. Although Arthur claimed to be in possession of the spare keys, she could not produce them to the police. Police number plate recognition cameras revealed no trace of the car,” he said.
Mr Neave added: “However police were alerted to another vehicle with a different registration mark leaving Pembrokeshire and heading towards Llanelli. When they checked the details they found that the co-defendant Biella was an insured driver. A search of this Llanelli home revealed documents including a service manual for Arthur’s car. He was then arrested and eventually admitted the offences in interview.”
Arthur also admitted to police that she was part of the scam.
Defending, Michael Kelleher said: “Arthur is a lady of clean character hitherto, she has entered a timely guilty plea. She has never been involved with any dishonesty before, and wonders how she got involved in this sordid scam. She has had several family problems. She had bought the BMW X5 and a horse with inheritance money; she wanted a strong car for a horse box.”
Mr. Kelleher said things went wrong when she had various difficulties with her children, which The Herald cannot report as the court has placed us under reporting restrictions.
“The result of these problems was that she needed to sell this vehicle,” Mr Kelleher said.
He added: “It is still Arthur’s position that she was not the prime mover, however we have to accept that this could not have happened had she not agreed to report the vehicle stolen. So they are both in this together.”
Mr Kelleher told the court that he had three character references for Arthur which showed her to be a hard-working parent holding down a part time job at a supermarket.
“The vehicle was returned and Tesco did not pay out. The only person who lost out here was Arthur for paying half of the £500 which her co-defendant had asked for,” he said.
Before retiring for lunch the chairman of the bench said that he was considering all sentencing options from a community sentence to custody.
Following the adjournment, Probation Service Officer, Mrs Norman explained to the court that Biella wasn’t sure what he was going to do with the car, and hadn’t thought that far ahead.
Mrs Norman told the court: “Biella has been suffering from anxiety and depression but is actively looking for work in order to get his life back on track.”
When asked by the probation officer where he would have got the money from when he originally offered £4,000, he said he would have got the money from his parents.
The court was told by probation that it was money issues had prompted this behaviour from Biella.
On sentencing Biella, magistrates said: ”We seriously considered your situation because you’ve got a criminal record already. It was almost a split decision whether or not we should send you to prison.”
For his part in the plot he was given an 18 month community order and ordered to do 200 hours of unpaid work. He was also fined £145.
On sentencing Arthur, magistrates said: “We have decided to sentence you to a community order. We have reduced your sentence from 16 to 12 months, because of your guilty plea.”
Arthur was also ordered to do 100 hours of unpaid work and fined £145.
The chairman of the bench said to the pair: “If we see you in court again you are likely to go to prison”.

Crime

Swansea man dies weeks after release from troubled HMP Parc: Investigation launched

Published

3 hours ago

December 4, 2025

Tom Sinclair

A SWANSEA man has died just weeks after being released from HMP Parc, the Bridgend prison now at the centre of a national crisis over inmate deaths and post-release failures.

Darren Thomas, aged 52, died on 13 November 2025 — less than a month after leaving custody. The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO) has confirmed an independent investigation into his death, which is currently listed as “in progress”.

Born on 9 April 1973, Mr Thomas had been under post-release supervision following a period at HMP/YOI Parc, the G4S-run prison that recorded seventeen deaths in custody in 2024 — the highest in the UK.

His last known legal appearance was at Swansea Crown Court in October 2024, where he stood trial accused of making a threatening phone call and two counts of criminal damage. During the hearing, reported by The Pembrokeshire Herald at the time, the court heard he made threats during a heated call on 5 October 2023.

Mr Thomas denied the allegations but was found guilty on all counts. He was sentenced to a custodial term, which led to his imprisonment at HMP Parc.

Parc: A prison in breakdown

HMP Parc has faced sustained criticism throughout 2024 and 2025. A damning unannounced inspection in January found:

Severe self-harm incidents up 190%
Violence against staff up 109%
Synthetic drugs “easily accessible” across wings
Overcrowding at 108% capacity

In the first three months of 2024 alone, ten men died at Parc — part of a wider cluster of twenty PPO-investigated deaths since 2022. Six occurred within three weeks, all linked to synthetic drug use.

Leaked staff messages in 2025 exposed a culture of indifference, including one officer writing: “Let’s push him to go tomorrow so we can drop him.”

Six G4S employees have been arrested since 2023 in connection with alleged assaults and misconduct.

The danger after release

Deaths shortly after release from custody are a growing national concern. Ministry of Justice data shows 620 people died while under community supervision in 2024–2025, with 62 deaths occurring within 14 days of release.

Short sentences — common at Parc — leave little time for effective rehabilitation or release planning. Homelessness, loss of drug tolerance and untreated mental-health conditions create a high-risk environment for those newly released.

The PPO investigates all such deaths to determine whether prisons or probation failed in their duties. Reports often take 6–12 months and can lead to recommendations.

A system at breaking point

The crisis at Parc reflects wider failures across UK prisons and probation. A July 2025 House of Lords report described the service as “not fit for purpose”. More than 500 people die in custody annually, with campaigners warning that private prisons such as Parc prioritise cost-cutting over care.

The PPO investigation into the death of Darren Thomas continues.

Crime

Woman stabbed partner in Haverfordwest before handing herself in

Published

4 hours ago

December 4, 2025

Court Reporter

A WOMAN who stabbed her partner during a drug-fuelled episode walked straight into Haverfordwest Police Station and told officers what she had done, Swansea Crown Court has heard.

Amy Woolston, 22, of Dartmouth Street in Milford Haven, arrived at the station at around 8:00pm on June 13 and said: “I stabbed my ex-partner earlier… he’s alright and he let me walk off,” prosecutor Tom Scapens told the court.

The pair had taken acid together earlier in the day, and Woolston claimed she believed she could feel “stab marks in her back” before the incident.

Police find victim with four wounds

Officers went to the victim’s home to check on him. He was not there at first, but returned shortly afterwards. He appeared sober and told police: “Just a couple of things,” before pointing to injuries on his back.

He had three stab or puncture wounds to his back and another to his bicep.

The victim said that when he arrived home from the shop, Woolston was acting “a bit shifty”. After asking if she was alright, she grabbed something from the windowsill — described as either a knife or a shard of glass — and stabbed him.

He told officers he had “had worse from her before”, did not support a prosecution, and refused to go to hospital.

Defendant has long history of violence

Woolston pleaded guilty to unlawful wounding. The court heard she had amassed 20 previous convictions from 10 court appearances, including assaults, battery, and offences against emergency workers.

Defending, Dyfed Thomas said Woolston had longstanding mental health problems and had been off medication prescribed for paranoid schizophrenia at the time.
“She’s had a difficult upbringing,” he added, saying she was remorseful and now compliant with treatment.

Woolston was jailed for 12 months, but the court heard she has already served the equivalent time on remand and will be released imminently on a 12-month licence.

News

BBC apologises to Herald’s editor for inaccurate story

Published

5 hours ago

December 4, 2025

Staff Writer

THE BBC has issued a formal apology and amended a six-year-old article written by BBC Wales Business Correspondent Huw Thomas after its Executive Complaints Unit ruled that the original headline and wording gave an “incorrect impression” that Herald editor Tom Sinclair was personally liable for tens of thousands of pounds in debt.

The 2019 report, originally headlined “Herald newspaper editor Tom Sinclair has £70,000 debts”, has now been changed.

The ECU found: “The wording of the article and its headline could have led readers to form the incorrect impression that the debt was Mr Sinclair’s personal responsibility… In that respect the article failed to meet the BBC’s standards of due accuracy.”

Mr Sinclair said: “I’m grateful to the ECU for the apology and for correcting the personal-liability impression that caused real harm for six years. However, the article still links the debts to ‘the group which publishes The Herald’ when in fact they related to printing companies that were dissolved two years before the Herald was founded in 2013. I have asked the BBC to add that final clarification so the record is completely accurate.”

A formal apology and correction of this kind from the BBC is extremely rare, especially for a story more than six years old.