A number of high-profile murder and manslaughter cases were heard at Teesside Crown Court throughout 2022 The Northern Echo looks back at some of the most shocking.
The savage and brutal killers of Tomasz Dembler were brought to justice when half-way through their trial they finally took responsibility for their drunken attack.
Another heart-breaking killing took place in February when Carol Hodgson was arrested after her two-year-old son, Daniel James Hodgson Green, was found unresponsive in her Guisborough bungalow.
The crime sent shockwaves through the close-knit east Cleveland community.
A drunken row in Thornaby ended with Keegan Barnes stabbing her friend Toni Butler in the leg twice and leaving her to bleed to death.
In the summer a jury heard how a long-running drug feud ended with two young men ramming into a rival as he cycled through Middlesbrough with his girlfriend sitting on the handlebars.
Carl Eland died four days later in hospital.
Tomasz Dembler
The Polish father-of-one was savagely beaten to death just weeks after he moved into a house in Middlesbrough.
The 39-year-old’s mutilated body was discovered by two teenage girls when they spotted his toes sticking out of the ground after his killers had buried him in a shallow grave at local beauty spot.
Cleveland Police detectives trawled through hours of CCTV and mobile phone data to trace those responsible for the mindless slaying.
Rafal Chmielewski and Zbigniew Pawlowski finally admitted their role in the killing of Tomasz Dembler before chopping his hands off in a desperate attempt to conceal his identity. His missing hands were never recovered.
Three other co-accused - Monika Solerska; Tomasz Reczycki; and Adam Czerwinski, all pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice by helping to dispose of the body.
Teesside Crown Court heard how Mr Dembler was savagely beaten in the early hours of March 21 last year following a row over after he made an alleged sexual slur towards Pawlowski.
The jury heard how Mr Dembler was killed inside a house on Edward Street, North Ormesby, Middlesbrough.
Mr Dembler's mutilated body was discovered in a shallow grave in woodland near Flatts Lane Country Park by two teenage girls after they spotted his toes poking out of the soil.
Throughout the seven-week trial, jurors heard how Mr Dembler suffered horrendous injuries when he was kicked, punched, and stamped on during a sustained brutal attack.
The court heard how a few days before the killing, Pawlowski had become enraged when Mr Dembler made a joke about him having sexual contact with men.
Chmielewski, 37, of Birchington Avenue, Grangetown, and Pawlowski, 42, of Leven Street, Newport, Middlesbrough, were jailed for 17 years and six months after they admitted manslaughter seven weeks into their murder trial.
Solerska, 37, of Birchington Avenue, Grangetown, was branded a liar by the judge as she sentenced her to five years and six months.
Czerwinski, 45, of Edward Street, North Ormesby, was jailed for five years for his role in the clean-up.
While Reczycki, 37, of Ashfield Avenue, Grove Hill, Middlesbrough, was sentenced to three years and six months in prison as ‘he was the first to break ranks’ the judge said.
Carol Hodgson
A callous mother who used a plastic bag to smoother her two-year-old son left a pleading note for her own mother to find.
Evil Hodgson left a sickening note in her Guisborough home after she murdered her son Daniel and made a failed attempt to take her own life.
The 40-year-old wrote: "Mama, sorry you don't want to see this, just ring the police! I am gone, I am so sorry. I love you. xxx".
Teesside Crown Court heard how Hodgson took the premeditated decision to kill Daniel James Hodgson Green on the morning she was due in court for a hearing to discuss his father having access to his child.
The toddler’s devastated father, Stefan Green, told a hushed courtroom: "He was my entire world, the day he was born I truly knew what love was, I knew what it was felt like to have a higher purpose, to do everything within my power to give him the best life, one full of love and happiness, to catch him when he fell, to wipe away his tears after heartbreak, and to hold him high whether he succeeded or failed.
"When he was taken from me, I used to call him my North Star, the guiding light home. The idea of seeing him again kept me pushing forward, gave me strength I never knew I had.”
He told her she would serve a minimum of 18 years before she could be considered for release.
“There is no doubt but that this was a premeditated killing which had been planned by you in advance. You deliberately killed Daniel and then made a determined attempt to kill yourself which was prevented by the arrival of your mother,” he said.
“You claimed that you had no idea what had happened to your son. You told the police that you had written the notes but that it was not your intention to kill Daniel. By your plea you now accept not only that you had killed him but that it had been your intention to do so.”
Toni Butler
A woman found guilty of the manslaughter of her friend has been jailed for more than eight years.
Keegan Barnes, from Thornaby, near Stockton, was convicted of the manslaughter of Toni Butler following a trial. She was found not guilty of murder.
Miss Butler, 25, died after being stabbed twice in the leg last June 10 after a drug fuelled party ended in violence.
During her evidence, the defendant told jurors that she had not slept for three days after taking a cocktail of drugs in the days leading up to the alleged murder.
Barnes told jurors that she had acted in self-defence when her friend attacked her.
She admitted that she had taken cannabis and cocaine as well as mix of prescription drugs in the days and hours leading up to the fatal confrontation.
Snapchat footage shown to the jury showed a group of friends partying on a grassed area outside the defendant’s home before they moved to Miss Butler’s flat to continue drinking and taking drugs.
Another piece of footage taken by Miss Butler in the early hours of the morning, jurors could hear her saying ‘Where am I? Where am I going? Where the f*** is Keegan?’.
This was a couple of hours before Miss Butler attacked the defendant in her own bed, the court heard.
The court had heard she had died of catastrophic blood loss after suffering two stab wounds to her calf – one piercing a main vein.
“Your use of a knife represented a serious escalation in the nature of the violence,” he said. “In addition to stabbing her twice, you struck her twice in the bedroom and once downstairs.”
The court heard Barnes had attempted cover-up the killing by undressing Ms Butler, cleaning her body and putting a new night shirt on her.
She is believed to have put the washing machine on twice, put clothes out to dry, put other stained items in a bag, tried to wipe blood stains from the walls, and even started painting the walls to cover the blood stains.
Carl Eland
Drugs and violence were at the heart of Carl Eland’s death with the murder victim playing a pivotal role in a ‘wild West’ shoot-out just weeks earlier.
Jurors heard how a long-running turf war had been raging in the North Ormesby of Middlesbrough in the months leading up to the fatal hit-and-run on Mr Eland.
Rival gangs of drug dealers were becoming involved in increasingly violent clashes as they fought over the illicit but lucrative trade in the area.
The rivalry came to a devastating head when Brandon Ali and Joey Matthews killed Mr Eland and injured his girlfriend as they cycled through Middlesbrough last summer.
The pair were in a Vauxhall Insignia, which they had bought just two day earlier, that was deliberately driven at the couple as a drugs feud boiled over on August 21, 2021.
The father-of-four died four days after he knocked of his bike while cycling with his girlfriend sitting on the handlebars. She suffered minor injuries.
Shocking CCTV footage showed their Vauxhall Insignia mount the kerb before hitting them at speed from behind and driving away from the scene.
A few months earlier, Mr Eland had been arrested on June 2, 2021, following an armed confrontation with Leon Parkinson, who was later jailed for his role in the violent stand-off.
Parkinson could be seen in CCTV footage, shown to the court, getting off the back of a motorbike and blasting the front door of Eland’s North Ormesby home.
The 20-year-old was then captured picking up the shotgun cartridges fired from the homemade ‘slam-gun’ before getting back on the motorbike and riding away.
Three months later, Eland was laid in the middle of the road fatally injured as the violence reached a deadly climax.
Mr Eland died four days later after suffering fatal head injuries. His partner, Kassi Weir, was also thrown from the bike but only suffered minor injuries.
Juror had listened to her harrowing 999 call with her shouting: "He's dying! He's dying!" as she watched blood pouring from her partner’s injuries.
He said: “No one who has seen the dramatic footage of the vehicle being driven into the bicycle and the cyclists being thrown from it, could forget those dreadful images. The sense of shock when it was played to the jury was audible.
“It is clear that there was hostility between the pair of you and Mr Eland, it may well be that it was related to a territorial drug dispute, but the fact is, I accept you were not out looking for him that night but when you saw him you saw that as the opportunity to exact retribution.”
Ali, of Dalwood Court in Hemlington, and Matthews, of Newcomen Green, both Middlesbrough, were found guilty by a jury of murder and attempting to cause grievous bodily harm with intent.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel