Here are the faces of 21 people with links to Northamptonshire who were among those jailed during July 2023. They include two men sentenced to life for murder in Northampton and Kettering, drug dealers and child sex offenders locked up for up to 20 years…
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Faces of some of the offenders jailed during July 2023 Photo: Northamptonshire Police
2. Phillip Dafter
The former soldier, 32, was jailed for life in July after a jury took just two hours to find him guilty of stabbing his wife Diana, 36, in a frenzied attack in their Lower Mounts home in October 2022. Dafter admitted manslaughter but denied murder, claiming diminished responsibility.
Dafter left Diana in their kitchen to bleed out and tried to stab himself with the same knife — but the blade broke so he drove to Asda to buy more. He then caught a train to London, bleeding and drinking whiskey before confessing to killing his wife to waiting British Transport Police at Euston. Photo: Northamptonshire Police
3. Saju Chelavalel
Chelavalel will spend at least 40 years behind bars after admitting murdering his wife, Anju Asok, and son Jeeva Saju, six, and four-year-old daughter Janvi Saju in a booze-fuelled attack in December last year. All three died as a result of asphyxiation.
The 52-year-old penned a letter to police where he accused nurse Anju, 35, of cheating on him. An examination of her phone found the accusations were not true — but Chelavalel himself had been using dating sites in the days up to the killings.
The court heard Chelavalel claimed he did not mean kill Anju and ‘wanted to shock her’. He then wrote a suicide note and killed Jeeva and Janvi, saying he didn’t want to leave them alone. He had made them a mix of chocolate, sugar, water and sleeping pills but they did not drink it and he later strangled them.
Judge, Mr Justice Pepperall, told him: “It may well be that you are never released from custody.” Photo: Northamptonshire Police
4. Luke Bradshaw
The 34-year-old, previously of Northampton, was jailed for 20 years after a jury found him guilty of 12 child sex offences. He also pleaded guilty to two further charges. Bradshaw was sentenced for two counts of rape, two counts of sexual activity with a child, two counts of assaulting a child, two counts of assault by penetration, two counts of sexual assault of a child and two counts of sexual assault, as well as the two charges he pleaded guilty to, which were possession of indecent images of children and inciting a child to engage in sexual activity. Photo: Northamptonshire Police