Wigan's week in court: latest cases going before judges and magistrates

Ian Thompson, 54, of Tensing Avenue, Atherton, faces five charges of indecently assaulting a girl under the age of 14 and one of inciting a girl under 14 to commit an act of gross indecency.

The offences are all alleged to have happened between June 1990 and April 1991 and involved the same girl.

Wigan magistrates sent the case to Bolton Crown Court, where a plea and trial preparation hearing will be held on April 30.

Thompson was remanded on unconditional bail.

A young man has been accused of failing to comply with a football banning order.

Harvey Thompson, 21, of Leigh Road, Leigh, is alleged to have failed to surrender his passport for the England v Finland match in October, which was a requirement of the order. He was remanded on unconditional bail and will appear before Wigan magistrates on May 30.

A Wigan man will appear before a crown court judge charged with a series of offences, including stalking a woman and strangling her.

Adam Smith, 30, of Sillitoe Drive, Springfield, is accused of aggravated burglary, in that he is said to have entered a property with a knife and attempted to inflict grievous bodily harm on a woman, as well as intentionally strangling her, on April 7 last year.

He is also charged with stalking the same woman, causing her to fear violence would be used, between March 13 and 30 this year.

Smith is further accused of having a knife in a public place, affray, criminal damage to a window and harassment by breaching a restraining order, all on March 21. He was remanded in custody and will appear at Bolton Crown Court on May 7.

A young man has pleaded not guilty to interfering with a car.

Jordan Rogers, 20, of Woodcock Drive, Platt Bridge, is charged with interfering with a white Jeep on January 24, 2024, with the intention of theft.

A trial will be held at Wigan and Leigh Magistrates' Court on March 17, 2026. He was remanded on unconditional bail.

A Wigan motorist has been given a suspended prison sentence and banned from the roads for five years after drink-driving. Adam Allsopp, 36, of Wigan Road, Ashton, was more than three times the legal limit when he was caught driving a Volvo V60 on Grantley Street, Ashton, on December 2. He had 133mcg of alcohol in 100ml of breath, exceeding the limit of 35mcg. He pleaded guilty to drink-driving and driving other than in accordance with a licence. Allsopp was given a 20-week prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, and was disqualified from driving for five years.

He was told to abstain from alcohol for 120 days, complete 10 days of rehabilitation activities and pay £85 prosecution costs and a £154 surcharge.

A man has been accused of attacking three police officers.

Neil Thomas, 47, of Ruskin Avenue, Worsley Mesnes, appeared before borough justices to face charges of the assault by beating of three emergency workers - namely PCs White and Hempsall and DC Deakin on March 29 while in the execution of their duties. He is further charged with causing racially or religiously-aggravated alarm or distress by writing.

A Leigh 50-year-old has been remanded into custody after denying he attacked a woman.

John Price, of Chisworth Close, appeared before Wigan magistrates to enter a not guilty plea to the single charge of causing a named female bodily harm during an assault on March 21. He will be kept in prison until his trial takes place at Tameside Magistrates' Court on May 19.

A suspended prison sentence has been imposed on a man who admitted twice breaching a restraining order in Wigan on the same day.

Michael England, 53, of Grosvenor Road, Whalley Range in Manchester, had initially denied the harassment offences committed on January 9 by contacting a named woman he was prohibited from seeing by a Bolton Crown Court order.

But at his latest appearance before Wigan and Leigh magistrates he changed his pleas to guilty.

No compensation was granted because, the bench heard, the victim wanted to sever all links with her tormentor and payments would only create an artificial one.

But justices gave him a 15-week custodial sentence and suspended it for 24 months.

Any further contact with the woman, England was told, could result in his being sent straight to prison.

A man who admitted to being in a hit-and-run crash while high on drink and drugs has narrowly avoided an immediate spell behind bars.

Nathan Greenwood, 26, of Windermere Road, Abram, had appeared before Wigan magistrates to plead guilty to charges of driving a Suzuki Ignis, on August 26, while under the influence of alcohol and cocaine, doing so while uninsured and not having a licence and driving off after damaging another vehicle on Warrington Road, causing scratches to its rear bumper.

Returning to court to learn his fate he received a 16-week custodial term but suspended it for 18 months.

He was also banned from driving for 30 months and ordered to complete 20 days of rehabilitation activities and abstain from alcohol for 120 days.

A 27-year-old Wigan motorist who admitted knife and drug possession and twice driving while banned has been given a suspended sentence, received community punishments and been further barred from the road for four years.

Borough magistrates heard that Jay Cooke, of Beech Hill Avenue, Beech Hill, was caught at the wheel of a BMW on Loire Drive, Wigan, on March 3 and Bolton Road, Ashton, on March 6 when he was disqualified from doing so.

He pleaded guilty to these charges and also ones of having no insurance on either occasion, possessing a blade on the second occasion and then being found with a class A substance at Wigan Infirmary on March 7.

Returning to court for sentencing, he was disqualified from driving for another 48 months, must complete 25 days of rehabilitation activities and 100 hours of unpaid work.

Cooke was also given a 20-week custodial sentence but it was suspended for two years.

A Wigan man who admitted holding up a Bargain Booze outlet while armed with a knife has been jailed for five years.

Dean Carradice, 39, of HMP Hindley, appeared before a Bolton Crown Court judge to plead guilty to robbery and possession of a knife at the shop on July 30.

He also admitted assaulting an emergency worker – a police officer – on August 6. Returning to court to learn his fate, he was given a five-year custodial term.

A Leigh 29-year-old has denied dangerously riding a motorbike nor unlawfully taking it in the first place.

But he will have to wait two years before he can try to prove his innocence.

Dawid Bialek, of Diamond Street in Leigh, appeared before a Bolton Crown Court judge to plead not guilty to charges of aggravated vehicle-taking, namely taking a Benelli 125cc motorcycle without its owner's consent on February 26, riding it dangerously along a number of Leigh streets including St Helens Road and Siddow Common, failing to stop for police and using the bike without insurance or a licence.

A trial date of April 1 2027 was set and he was bailed until then.

A man will be sentenced next month for strangling and threatening to kill a Wigan woman.

Robert Daniels, 46, of Blacon Point Road in Chester, had initially appeared before borough justices to deny a total of nine charges, all but one involving the same named female.

It was alleged that he assaulted her by beating and threatened to kill her last November 2, said that he would end her life again both on January 2 and 5, and on those occasions intentionally throttled her and also caused her actual bodily harm on that final occasion.

He is also accused of trying to pervert the course of justice by the January 2 death threat and also by sending a text to a named male on January 5 telling him not to contact police.

But on his first appearance before a Bolton Crown Court judge he changed four of his pleas to guilty: one of intentional strangulation, one threat to kill and the actual bodily harm and assault by beating charges.

The other charges will now lie on file and Daniels returns to court on May 15 for sentence.

An elderly Wigan paedophile who committed numerous court order breaches by jetting off on foreign holidays without notifying the authorities has been given a community punishment.

Barry Fletcher, 74, of Wellington Place, is required to sign on the sex offenders' register after convictions for downloading indecent images of children in 2017.

One of the requirements is that he must notify police of any foreign travel.

But Wigan magistrates heard that between December 2023 and October last year he has enjoyed jaunts to Malta, Rome, Krakow, Bruges and Palma, each time without telling the relevant parties.

Fletcher pleaded guilty to six breaches in all, because he also neglected to inform the authorities that he had obtained a new passport.

At his sentencing hearing Fletcher was fined £100 and ordered to complete 20 days of rehabilitation activities.

A Wigan 29-year-old who admitted blackmailing a woman has narrowly avoided an immediate spell behind bars.

Kieran Knowles, of Hamilton Square, Worsley Hall, pleaded guilty to demanding £100 with menaces from the woman between December 31, 2023 and January 31, 2024.

Appearing before a Chester Crown Court judge, he was given a 14-month prison sentence but it was suspended for 18 months.

He must also complete 200 hours of unpaid work and has been made the subject of a five-year restraining order preventing any contact with his victim.

A three-year ban from the road has been imposed on a Wigan motorist who drove under the influence of drugs.

Gary Lowe, 37, of Cowburn Street, Hindley, appeared before borough justices to plead guilty to having taken cannabis before driving his Volkswagen Touran on Crow Orchard Road, Standish, on March 15 2022.

As well as the 36-month disqualification he was ordered to pay a fine, costs and victim services surcharge totalling £525.

A 35-year-old from Wigan has admitted to being a drug dealer.

Lewis Simm, of Fowler Close, Scholes, appeared before local magistrates to admit to possessing cannabis with intent to supply it and also being concerned in the supply of the class B drug on August 29 2022.

He was granted unconditional bail until he returns to court for sentencing on June 23.

A notorious shoplifter is back in prison after breaching an order barring him from Wigan town centre.

Arthur McLean, 54, of no fixed address, appeared before borough justices to admit to flouting a criminal behaviour order by entering the town on April 1.

The bench told him that he had such a flagrant disregard for court orders that only a custodial sentence was fitting.

He was locked up for six weeks and must also pay a £154 victim services surcharge.

A Wigan man who smuggled cannabis into the country has been jailed for 10 months.

George Tyson, 31, of Barn Lane in Golborne, had previously appeared before borough magistrates to plead guilty to a charge of being involved in fraudulent evasion of a prohibition on the importation of a class B drug in Manchester on or before January 25.

He has been prosecuted until the 1979 Customs and Excise Management Act.

Attending Bolton Crown Court for sentencing he was given a 10-month custodial term and ordered to pay £187 to victim services.

A Wigan man has walked free after a blackmail accusation against him collapsed.

Cieran Harrison, 38, of Marsh Green, Marsh Green, had previously appeared before a Bolton Crown Court judge to plead not guilty to a single charge of blackmailing a named man by making an unwarranted demand for £400 from him with menaces on October 9.

An April trial date was fixed but before a jury could be sworn in, the prosecution offered no evidence and he was told he was free to go,

However the judge did impose a 10-year restraining order preventing Harrison from having any contact with the complainant.

The trial of a Wigan 30-year-old who denies throttling a woman and sending an obscene message has been postponed.

Thomas Rostron, of Alders Green Road, Hindley Green, is charged with intentionally strangling a named woman on September 3 last year, assaulting the same woman by beating on that day and to sending offensive or indecent or menacing message via electronic communications on November 3.

He had previously entered not guilty pleas and a trial was due to take place this month, but it has now been delayed until September 16, although a case management hearing will be held before then on June 18.

A 61-year-old has admitted to affray, knife possession and causing damage worth thousands of pounds to a car.

But Jeffrey Riley, of Willow Avenue, Tyldesley, denied two charges of threatening Daniel Leck with a blade on Sherwood Avenue, Tyldesley, on June 30 last year. The vandalism involved damage of £2,668.40 to Mr Leck's Ford Focus car.

A Bolton Crown Court judge adjourned the case until sentencing on May 15.

​A trial date more than two years away has been set for men from Wigan and Salford who deny making threatening phone calls.

​Lewis King, 26, of Lockgate Place, Ince, and 58-year-old Liam Dunn, of Miller Street, Eccles, appeared before a Bolton Crown Court judge to enter not guilty pleas to the charges against them.

They will next be in court on June 26 for a case management hearing but their trial is only scheduled to begin on April 23, 2027.