Mahek Bukhari and the 11 other criminals jailed by Leicester Crown Court in the past year

In the past 12 months, 12 killers have been jailed for life after being convicted of murder by juries at Leicester Crown Court. They include TikTok influencer Mahek Bukhari and three of her co-defendants, as well as the father of one-month-old Ollie Davis and a 16-year-old, who was convicted last week of murdering Junior Osborne, aged of 50, in Narborough Road, Leicester.

Two of the killers, Kyle Morley and Leighton Reid, were convicted of killing people who were their close friends. Both murders involved violence fueled by drink and drugs.

And two cases were men who killed women they had relationships with. Shannon Grant killed Natasha Morais and dumped her naked, tortured body in a bed storage compartment, while Richard Basson shot his girlfriend Carrie Slater in the face before making up a series of lies about how he suffered the fatal injury.

READ MORE: Leicestershire’s most dangerous streets

Below are the 12 people who were found guilty of murder at Leicester Crown Court in the past year:

Mahek Bukhari, Ansreen Bukhari, Rekan Karwan and Raees Jamal

TikTok influencer Mahek Bukhari and three of her co-defendants, including her own mother, were jailed for life last July for their roles in killing two men on the A46 in Leicestershire. Mahek will spend at least 31 years behind bars, while her mother Ansreen Bukhari, who also received a life sentence, must spend 27 years in prison before she can be considered for release.

who were also convicted last month after a trial of killing Saqib Hussain and Hashim Ijazuddin were also given life sentences. Rekan Karwan (29), of Tomlin Road, Leicester, was jailed for at least 27 years and Raees Jamal (29), of Lingdale Close, who was driving the Seat Leon which hit the victims’ Skoda Fabia on A46, received a minimum of 36 years.

His sentence is five years longer than Mahek’s because of the unexecuted prison term for his 10-year prison sentence for raping a young woman in 2020. Three others who were tried with them received manslaughter convictions and were also closed.

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Kyle Morley

Kyle Morley killed his close friend after catching him having a sexual encounter in a children’s playground with his ex-girlfriend. Morley will serve at least 18 years and six months of life in prison before being eligible for parole.

In the early hours of Friday, February 24 last year, Morley, who had been in Hugglescote, near Coalville, drinking and taking cocaine, met his ex-girlfriend Katie Lamb on a sex date with his friend David Bettison in a park in Ashburton Road. Morley first punched Miss Lamb in the face before attacking Mr Bettison, 43, with whom she had been drinking earlier in the night.

Morley, 29, of St Bernards Road, Whitwick, pleaded guilty to assault occasioning grievous bodily harm against Miss Lamb, 23, but denied killing Mr Bettison. When Leicestershire Police arrived, Morley pretended to attack Mr Bettison to stop him raping Miss Lamb, but later admitted it was a lie, saying he had attacked the 43-year-old father but he didn’t want to hurt him badly.

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Katie Tidmarsh

Katie Tidmarsh was convicted of injuring and killing a baby girl she was supposed to adopt as her own. She was jailed for life with a minimum of 17 years at Leicester Crown Court.

Tidmarsh was found guilty by a jury of murdering one-year-old Ruby Thompson, who had been placed with Tidmarsh and her husband by Leicestershire County Council. During her trial, the court heard Ruby’s injuries were equivalent to falling from a second-floor window or a 60mph road accident.

Ruby had been violently shaken and her head had been struck by a hard object, fracturing her skull. In August 2012, emergency services were called to the couple’s home in Pickwell Close, Glenfield, and Leicestershire Police arrived to find the child unconscious and rushed her to Leicester Royal Infirmary, but she died in hospital two days later later.

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Leighton Reid

Hours of drinking and drugs led to the brutal attack in which Leighton Reid stabbed his brother-in-law Liam Waldron to death. The jury took just three hours and 21 minutes to convict Reid of murder at Leicester Crown Court.

Reid had been tried alongside his aunt, Angela Wright, who was charged with assisting a criminal. But Wright died during the trial.

Reid and Mr Waldron had met at the Melton restaurant in Belgrave. They arrived at Mr Waldron’s daughter’s house in Gipsy Road, Belgrave, where at around lunchtime the next day, after drinking more alcohol, Reid took a kitchen knife and used it to cut Mr Waldron in the face and stab him once in the arm. twice in the leg, severing his femoral artery with a knife wound 11 cm deep.

Reid was caught on camera leaving the property, followed by the seriously injured Mr Waldron, who fell to the ground. Reid started to try to drag Mr Waldron back into the house, but then gave up and walked away, leaving his brother-in-law to bleed to death in the street.

Reid, 43, of Oxford Street, Syston, walked to the home of his aunt, 64, in Shanti Margh, Belgrave, and she drove him back to his home. Reid was jailed for life with at least 17 years before being eligible for parole.

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Shannon Grant

Police entered a Whetstone apartment belonging to Natasha Morais and found her naked, beaten body hidden in the storage compartment under her bed. The next day, the man with whom she had an intimate relationship, Shannon Grant, was arrested near his home in Rotherham Road, Coventry, and later charged with her murder.

During a trial at Leicester Crown Court, the 27-year-old denied beating, torturing and strangling the 40-year-old and claimed they were both involved in drug dealing and that an armed gang of masked men had entered and killed her. He said they demanded to know where the drugs and money were and she refused to tell them.

But the jury returned a verdict of guilty of murder. Grant previously admitted a second charge of possessing an illegal shortened barrel shotgun. He was sentenced to life with a minimum of 34 years in prison before being considered for parole.

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Michael Davis

Father Michael Davis, who beat his son to death, has been jailed for at least 22 years for the murder. The child’s mother, Kayleigh Driver, 31, was jailed for seven years for causing or allowing the death of a child and causing or allowing a child to suffer serious physical injury.

Davis was found guilty by a jury at Leicester Crown Court of murdering Ollie Davis after physically abusing the one-month-old and causing 40 broken bones, including a broken neck, which eventually killed the child.

Paramedics were called to Driver’s mother’s home in Upper Temple Walk, Beaumont Leys, Leicester, in October 2017 after Davis found the child unresponsive in the cot next to his bed. At first there were no visible signs of abuse, but a post-mortem examination revealed horrific injuries, including brain damage and wounds all over the body, which experts said could not have been caused by one incident but by days of abuse.

Davis, 29, denied causing the fatal injuries but the jury found him guilty after hearing the horrific injuries were inflicted over several days – most of the injuries, including the fatal broken neck, were inflicted between 10 and four days before his death.

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Richard Basson

Richard Basson, 45, was found guilty of murdering his girlfriend, Carrie Slater, after shooting her in the head in their home last year. When emergency services arrived, he lied that she had confronted him with a knife, which led to him accidentally stabbing her in the forehead with a pool cue.

But forensic evidence showed a bullet had caused the wound and he also shot her a second time, hitting a wall at their home in Long Clawson, near Melton. He was sentenced to life for a minimum of 32 years, also pleading guilty to possessing a prohibited firearm and ammunition.

During the trial, the jury was played a haunting recording of Bassson’s 999 call, in which Miss Slater, 37, could be heard moaning in the background after suffering the injury. She was taken to hospital but died two days later after life support was withdrawn.

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Daniel Rounce

When Daniel Rounce was jailed for life with a minimum sentence of 25 years for murdering a complete stranger, he was described by the judge as “one of the most difficult, manipulative and potentially disturbing prisoners I have experienced”. Rounce had been arrested by Leicestershire police hours after he entered a woman’s home while she was having tea with her ex-husband, stabbing the man in the heart before fleeing.

Rounce refused to speak to investigating officers – or even leave his cell – and also failed to cooperate with his own legal team on multiple occasions. Last year, after he was found unfit to stand trial, a “trial in fact” took place and a jury at Leicester Crown Court ruled that Rounce carried out the stabbing of Gerald Wickes, 79, in Queens Park Way, Eyres Monsell, Leicester in February 2023.

But further assessments by experts Rounce, The Green, Markfield decided the 18-year-old was fit to stand trial and it started earlier this year. He was later found guilty of murder after refusing to testify in his own defense.

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Nero McLean

A 50-year-old father was murdered in Leicester by a “pack” of “wild” teenagers – including twins who had celebrated their 16th birthday the day before the fatal attack. Nero McLean was convicted by a jury of murdering Junior Osborne in Narborough Road just after 9.30pm on Wednesday September 27 last year.

During the trial at Leicester Crown Court, CCTV was shown of Nero McLean sprinting down Narborough Road, near the Subway takeaway, and – as children played nearby – stabbing Mr Osborne in the back of the head with a “very large knife” while he. he was on a bicycle on the sidewalk. The knife went through his jugular vein and down into his abdomen, severing one of his lungs.

Four co-defendants were convicted of manslaughter and each sentenced to eight years in prison, including McClean’s twin brother Nevardo.

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