Preston Crown Court

Four months later, on the 4th of February, 2013, serial killer Dale Cregan finally faced justice.

120 armed police officers were used to ferry Britain's most wanted killer from Strangeways Prison to Preston Crown Court each day.

This was one of the biggest trials in recent times in, certainly in the northwest of England, if not the country.

And Cregan had to be housed securely and taken to court every day, and there was a massive security operation.

The Rugby World Cup began in the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.

And in UK true crime news, Harold Shipman went on trial at Preston Crown Court, accused of murdering 15 elderly female patients who died in the Greater Manchester area.

So did you get the month and year? It was October 1999.

Today's story comes from Scotland's third-largest city, Aberdeen.

If they end up convicted, I don't even know if it's this judge that would end up carrying out that sentence or issuing one.

So here are people in support outside the Preston Crown Court.

where they were celebrating the fact that five activists who broke windows and threw red paint at Barclays Bank branch in protest over Israel's genocide in Gaza will not be sentenced as terrorists.

So they were found guilty.

Judge Robert Altham told a packed room in Preston Crown Court on Friday the damage the activists caused with their August 2024 direct action protests in Burnley was significant.

However, he was not satisfied that it met the statutory measures of serious damage required under the Terrorism Act.

Visibly relieved, the defendants filed out of the tense courtroom to a gathering of family and friends who cheered and clapped.

Preston Davey.

It's been 11 weeks since the judge at Preston Crown Court handed down those sentences.

11 weeks since Jamie Varley was given a whole life tariff, never to be released, and his partner, John McGowan-Fazackerley, was jailed for 25 years.

11 weeks since the cameras pulled back, the news crews packed up outside the courthouse, and the headlines moved on.

But we all know who he is.

But we all know who he is.

And, and they will all know, and the interesting thing I thought, uh, that was, came out of his second, um, court appearance, so the judge has, uh, a window, and there was a lot for the judge to go through, uh, the justice to go through at Preston Crown Court on that day in terms of the sentencing-

Yeah

That image you just saw a moment ago, the video, the B-roll, that apparently is several hundred thousand pounds worth of damage.

That verdict was handed down by a jury in Preston Crown Court.

But unknown to them, and also unknown to the defendants, the judge wants to go further than sentencing them as mere lawbreakers.

Uh, the five now face being sentenced as terrorists after the judge declared his intention to consider a terrorist connection in the case.

For Mary's family, the pain of losing her had, of course, already been enormous.

But they now had to prepare for something that they could never have imagined when she died three years earlier, a murder trial, which began at Preston Crown Court in November 2021, with Darnton now aged 20 years old.

The prosecution told the jury, made up of seven women and five men, that Mary's death had originally been regarded as accidental until Darnton's confession during his counseling.

The prosecution said that Darnton claimed he'd killed Mary out of mercy because he wanted to end the suffering that he believed she was experiencing because of her dementia.