The Chronicles of Ruination 2: Swansea,South Wales - Men jailed following death of man found in Pontardawe canal

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Swansea,South Wales - Men jailed following death of man found in Pontardawe canal

John Garfield Griffiths, whose body was found in Pontardawe canal in September 2014

A MAN has been jailed for stealing from a man later found dead in a canal, having initially been the subject of a possible murder inquiry by police.

Nicholas Cory James, aged 21, admitted stealing the jacket of John Garfield Griffiths, and its possessions, after the body of the 66-year-old was discovered in the canal at Herbert Street on September 1 last year.

He later gave a debit card he found in the jacket to heroin-user John Evans, of Mount Pleasant, Pontardawe.

Evans, 43, has also been jailed, for four months, after admitting handling stolen goods, fraud and possession of class A and B drugs, including 11 grams of amphetamine. He had used the stolen debit card to top up his mobile phone credit; twice successful for £50, and one attempt for £270 which had been declined.

Linked charges to James' father Richard were dropped before the case reached court.

Prosecuting, Georgina Buckley said Mr Griffiths had suffered a blunt trauma injury to the back of his head which, according to a post mortem report, which was so serious it would have meant he possibly had only up to an hour and a half left to live after receiving it. But she added it was not clear how he had received it, or whether that or drowning had been the cause of his death.

She told Swansea Crown Court that James had claimed to have first attempted to rescue Mr Griffiths from the water, leaving him on a bench, before returning to steal his jacket.

She said: "In [police] interview he described in detail how he tried to pull him out of the water. He then went to a friend's house and asked him what to do. He said his friend told him to leave him where he was."

But James returned to the scene and then took Mr Griffiths' jacket, the court heard, which he claimed the man had taken off and left on the floor.

Almost three weeks later police had visited James, at his home on Brecon Road with a search warrant. Mr Griffiths' jacket was found outside in a wheelie bin, and bins and a set of house keys discovered in a skip.

Mitigating, Robin Rouch said James had pleaded guilty to the theft charge, and added: "It is difficult to reconcile his actions that evening. He has to accept that after the point where he initially tried to assist his actions were one of someone who washed his hands of the situation and left Mr Griffiths in a vulnerable position and...when he came back from a friend's house saw items, picked them up and when away with them.

"He accepts he will have to live with why he did not do more. He says it is something he thinks about on a daily basis."

Sentencing James to 12 months imprisonment, Judge Huw Davies QC first questioned versions of events he had told police and another man he had confided in, Jonathan Rees, who was later interviewed by officers.

He said: "It is impossible to treat either as true...as they conflict with each other in important respects".

He added: "Jonathan Garfield Griffiths was 66 when he died. He died in circumstances which have not been explained to the satisfaction of any authority charged with the duty of investigating those circumstances.

"He suffered some blunt trauma to the back of his head which had caused a brain injury. The evidence I am told is that after having suffered that head injury he was unlikely to be able to survive for more than an hour and a half.

"Nicholas Cory James claims that at some stage after Mr Griffiths suffered that injury he encountered him on the evening he commissioned the offence of theft. His revised version of that incident to police interview under caution was that he had found Mr Griffiths on the edge of the canal, but not in it, and that he helped Mr Griffiths to a nearby bench where he left him sitting when he went to seek advice about what he should do, and said his friend callously advised him to leave Mr Griffiths to his fate, and the returned along the towpath, where he was still sitting, and stole his jacket and personal items inside it.

"An earlier version of circumstances that he told Jonathan Rees was that he first encountered Mr Griffiths that night in the water but actively pulled him out, only there after to steal his jacket containing various personal items. Whether either accounts is true, only Nicholas Corey James knows.

"Even on the most favourable view of the accounts you stole from someone in the most vulnerable circumstances imaginable. Someone who is dying of a head injury, and whose condition must have been blindingly obvious to any observer.

"After stealing Mr Griffiths jacket and possessions, you went back to your home and within 24 hours had distributed some of those possessions.

"The day after Mr Griffiths had died, and his body was found and a substantial police investigation followed, you volunteered no information about it, but waited until some police some weeks after the event were conducting searches and finding at your home items connected to Mr Griffiths before offering any information."

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Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Swansea,South Wales - Men jailed following death of man found in Pontardawe canal

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