Three home invaders have been sentenced for holding a gun to a man’s head in front of his son and fiancée and brutalising his pet dog during a burglary in multicultural Manchester.
36-year-old Nathaniel Leckie, 20-year-old Tyler Tucker, and 19-year-old Jordell Keegan are described as having been “jailed for nearly three decades” for the violent home invasion by the Manchester Evening News, although in reality none of them will serve anything like 30 years in Britain, having been handed terms of just 11 years, eight years and three months, and seven years and four months, respectively.
This does not reflect the amount of time any of them will actually spend in prison, either, with all of them set to be granted early release on licence after serving just half of their terms, as is normal.
This is despite the unusually violent nature of the gang’s crime, which saw them break into the home of victim Jack Golding and his family armed with a machete, ratchet, and firearm, holding the gun to his head and demanding money and valuables after he struck one of them with a baseball bat to try and keep them away from his baby and his partner.
The gang also subjected the family dog to a savage attack, leaving her face covered in gashes and causing her to lose one of her eyes.
Mr Golding’s fiancée, Annmarie Behan, had earlier described how the dog, Cilla, was “just a standard… family pet” and had “never been aggressive,” adding that “[e]ven when she was cut she came back into the bedroom and sat with the baby to protect him.”
“I don’t know how she survived,” she added.
“Nobody is helping us and we have just been left now,” said Mr Golding after the gang’s sentencing.
“We feel a bit better now that they have been sent to prison and we thought the sentencing would give us closure but it hasn’t really,” the father-of-one continued, noting that the couple was particularly unhappy with Keegan’s sentence.
The family has been left homeless in the wake of the attack, bouncing between family and friends for accommodation.
“It just feels like we have been violated all over again,” Mr Golding lamented.
From May 12th, police in Manchester are “urging people to hand over their firearms during a two-week long surrender of firearms and ammunition” as part of the National Firearm Surrender campaign.
“This surrender is not just targeting those involved in criminal behaviour, it’s also aimed at collectors, licence holders, and anyone who has inherited a firearm,” the force noted on Wednesday, with Superintendent John Griffiths saying Mancunian officers “are absolutely committed to robustly investigating serious crime, specifically targeting those in possession or transferring firearms as they pose a real, serious threat to not only the Greater Manchester region, but all across the UK.”
The campaign relies on firearms holders simply deciding to hand in their guns of their own accord rather than any sort of detective work, however.