Leeds court round-up: Cases heard this week include man who stuffed cocaine up his bum

Andrew Leeming, 38, was a passenger in a car that was stopped by police in March this year. Officers noticed Leeming fidgeting with his trousers and ordered a search, and Leeds Crown Court heard that officers then saw a bag of cocaine “protruding from his anus”.

He pushed the bag further inside his body after told being to take it out and he was taken to hospital to be examined. Police recovered drugs worth £650 and mobile phones showing he had been dealing to users, along with £160 in notes stashed in the car’s sun visor. Leeming, of Bradford, pleaded guilty to two counts of possession of Class A drugs and was jailed for three years.

Below is a selection of other cases heard at Leeds Crown Court over the last week.

Paul Gummerson

Paul Gummerson was given four years in jail for assault occasioning actual bodily harm and a further offence of controlling and coercive behaviour. He had also been charged with attempted murder initially but that charge was dropped when he admitted the other offences on the day his trial was due to start in October.

The court heard he had pressed a pillow to his wife’s face in April this year and in a victim impact statement read out to Leeds Crown Court on Wednesday, his wife admitted she still loves him, although wishes she could “turn it off like a tap”.

Gummerson was given a four year sentence for each of the two charges, with the time to be served concurrently. He will serve 32 months before being considered for release on licence. He was also given an indefinite restraining order that bans him from contacting his wife by any means.

Dane Lyons

Dane Lyons, 29, was sentenced at Leeds Crown Court on Friday for being in possession of a firearm and ammunition at a property in Morley. Lyons pleaded guilty to two charges relating to the possession of a sawn-off shotgun and another charge relating to the possession of cannabis. He told police he had bought the gun “for his own protection” as “several people were pursuing him”. He was sentenced to 16 months in prison.

Nathan Flesher

Nathan Flesher was sentenced on Friday for the three occasions he exposed himself and masturbated at women near Temple Newsam. Flesher pleaded guilty to two of the counts of indecent exposure and was found guilty of an incident involving a 21-year-old woman following a trial. Flesher, 31, was given a nine month custodial sentence suspended for two years. He was also ordered to undertake 150 hours of unpaid work, banned from returning to Temple Newsam, and given a sexual harm prevention order that stops him approaching women.

Karl Cockerill

Karl Cockerill was caught taking San Miguel lager from a Co-Op store in Horbury in September. He was then caught stealing £135 worth of steak and chocolate from the Iceland store on Kirkgate in Wakefield. Cockerill was late arriving and when he did enter the court, Judge Paul Batty said: “There’s a very, very strong smell of alcohol in the room.” He was given a 12 month community order and 20 days of rehabilitation activity to help him stop drinking.