Here’s a rundown of the criminals who are now behind bars.
Christopher Baptiste
Christopher Baptiste, 54, murdered his flatmate, 36-year-old Sonny Booty, by stabbing him 14 times at their shared house on Loampit Vale, Lewisham.
Baptiste used a a 16in (40cm) carving knife to kill Mr Booty before handing himself in to police saying “I’ve murdered my flatmate”, only to later retract his confession and claim he left Mr Booty “alive and well”.
A court heard that the two men had a “volatile” friendship and had spent that evening drinking and playing pool at the Anchor pub.
Just after 10.30pm an argument broke out and they were asked to leave by the landlady.
Later, neighbours near their home in Loampit Vale heard voices saying “shut your mouth before I kill you” and “stop it”.
Baptiste was found guilty of murder and jailed for life with a minimum of 18 years.
Read the full story here – Lewisham man jailed for murder after stabbing flatmate 14 times.
Asonu McKenzie and Reshaun Nembhard
Asonu McKenzie and Reshaun Nembhard, both aged 29 and of no fixed address, were involved in 12 robberies of high-value watches across south London.
During a two-month period last summer, a series of robberies were carried out in Lambeth, Southwark, Bromley, Croydon, Wandsworth and Hammersmith and Fulham.
The method of these robberies was always the same; the suspects would arrive in a silver Audi Q2 and drive around the area to locate their victims.
Once a victim was identified, one or two men would get out of the vehicle and approach them from behind. They were then struck on the back of the head with a blunt object.
Once the victims were incapacitated, they would have their high value watches taken from their wrists.
This caused injuries such as fractured skulls and lacerations with one victim still under assessment for potentially losing his sight.
After being caught after a four-week manhunt McKenzie was jailed for 14 years while Nembhard was jailed for eight years.
Read the full story here – Two men jailed for ‘violent’ robberies across south London.
Taye Francis
Taye Francis, 42, stabbed his girlfriend to death at a Holiday Inn in Greenwich.
After murdering 23-year-old Khloemae Loy by stabbing her in the neck with a knife he had bought from Asda then sent a photo of her lying dead on a bed to his lawyer saying “I’ve killed my girlfriend”.
The murder took place in July 2020 and in November 2021 a jury found him guilty of murder – but his conviction was later quashed by the Court of Appeal and a retrial was ordered.
This month a second jury found Francis guilty of murder and he was re-sentenced to life with a minimum of 23 years.
Francis, formerly known as Ashley Wyatt, had a string of convictions for violence against women.
In 2002 he was jailed for six years and placed on the sex offenders’ register for two rapes, kidnap and having a blade.
The victim in that incident was an ex-girlfriend who was abducted on her lunch break, forced onto a train where she was raped in the toilet, then taken to an address where she was raped again.
Read the full story here – Greenwich Holiday Inn killer found guilty at murder retrial.
Matthew Smith
Paedophile teacher Matthew Smith, 35, from East Dulwich, paid £65,000 to commission the sexual abuse of children as young as seven.
He encouraged men in India to lure children away from their family homes then send him footage of sexual abuse.
Smith was previously deputy head at Thomas’s in Battersea, the £20,000 a year school which Prince George and Princess Charlotte attended.
The teacher has pleaded guilty to 17 charges including encouraging the rape of a child under 13, causing a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity, and arranging the sexual abuse of a child.
When his home on Chesterfield Grove in East Dulwich was raided in November 2022 Smith told officers: “Clearly I have an addiction, probably in this area. I’m ashamed of who I am. I would do anything to be normal, anything.”
Over 120,000 child sexual abuse images were found on Smith’s computers along with messages to men in India in which he encouraged them to rape and abuse children.
Read the full story here – Paedophile south east London teacher jailed for 12 years.
Kaine Gilead
Kaine Gilead, 26, shot a man dead from behind at a block of flats in West Norwood.
Ramane Wiggan was killed in Friar Mews on March 27, 2019, after travelling to the area to collect a drugs debt of £10,000.
It was later found that he was shot from behind by a Glock pistol, with one of the bullets passing through his chest.
Judge Topolski, sentencing Gilead, said he had committed a “brutal and callous” murder that would “haunt Ramane’s mother, family, friends, for many years”.
Gilead was jailed for life with a minimum term of 34 years.
Read the full story here – Surbiton man jailed for fatal shooting in West Norwood
Warren Wright, Zieng Ly and Mark John Baeza
Greenwich men Warren Wright, Zieng Ly and Mark John Baeza were involved in the supply of over 45kgs across south east London and to county lines gangs.
They came to police attention when they used the Encro chat platform to buy and sell large amounts of cocaine.
Wright’s home on Camdale Road in Greenwich was raided in January 2021 during which £30,000 was found in a takeaway delivery bag and an Encro chat phone was found.
Baeza’s home on Bracondale Road in Greenwich was raided on the same day and he was also arrested.
Wright, aged 48, was jailed for 11 years for conspiracy to supply over 15kgs of cocaine.
A few weeks earlier Baeza, aged 44, was jailed for 18 years for conspiracy to supply 15kgs of cocaine.
Ly, aged 42, was jailed for 18 years for conspiracy to supply 11kgs of cocaine and conspiracy to supply 6kgs of cannabis.
Read the full story here – Greenwich cocaine dealers jailed after £30,000 found in Deliveroo bag.
Irnti Rapai
Irnti Rapai, 29, of Liddon Road in Bromley, was involved in a plot to smuggle £1million of cocaine into the UK.
He acted as lookout as his accomplices Sean Bourke and Salih Saruhan attempted to extract the drugs from a shopping container which had arrived from Costa Rica.
At around 6pm on February 11 the trio were seen leaving a barber shop in Sheerness, Kent, carrying extendable ladders.
They walked along the seafront to the port where Rapai took up his position as lookout near the shore.
Suruham, 32, and Bourke, 35, then used the ladders to scale the port’s fence and made their way to the refrigerated containers which held 10kilos of cocaine, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said.
As Suruham and Bourke opened a container Border Force officers who were awaiting their arrival closed in and the pair fled before being detained.
Rapai was then arrested outside the port in a supermarket car park near his lookout point.
Saruhan, of Broadway in Sheerness, and Bourke, of Minster Road in Sheerness, were jailed for seven-and-a-half-years. Rapai was jailed for six years and seven months.
Read the full story here – Bromley man tried to smuggle £1million of cocaine through UK port.
Dylan Evans and Michael Lowis
Dylan Evans and Michael Lowis ran away empty-handed just 25 seconds after they entered HSBC holding an axe and pushed an elderly lady over.
At 10am Dylan Evans and Michael Lowis charged into a high-street bank holding an axe and pushed a 77-year-old customer to the floor while telling a cashier “give us your f***ing money”.
But a member of staff pressed an alarm button just moments after their heist began causing the criminal masterminds to run away while shouting “ABORT! ABORT!”.
At the Old Bailey on Friday (August 18) the pair received lengthy prison sentences after they pleaded guilty to attempted robbery.
Lowis was given a prison sentence of 18 years and 8 months, with an additional four years to be served on licence.
Evans was given a 25-year prison sentence with an additional four years to be served on licence.
Read the full story here – Bungling bank robbers pushed old lady over then left empty-handed after 25 seconds.
https://www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/23753113.south-east-london-men-jailed-august-including-lewisham-murderer/
