There would seem to be no more despicable act than to commit a crime against someone close to you.
But these five criminals all did just that by carrying out heinous acts against members of their own families.
The crimes committed by these five individuals include threatening their grandparents, using their relatives to fuel their drug addictions, attacking their step-kids after a row, and a man who killed his brother with a knife.
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All five were jailed at Teesside or Durham Crown Court in April and May.
Urfan Arshad
‘Despicable’ Arshad, 42, violently robbed his father, carried out a sexual assault on a teenage girl, burgled vulnerable people’s homes, spat in a police officer’s face, and robbed a shop, has been locked up for his catalogue of offences.
Urfan Arshad’s reign of terror took place in Middlesbrough and Darlington over a two-year period and had a devastating impact on all of his family, Teesside Crown Court heard.
He violently attacked his father and forced him to withdraw cash from his bank account to pay for drugs. He pleaded guilty midway through his trial.
Arshad, of Harrowgate Hill, Darlington was jailed for a total of eight-and-a-half years earlier this month.
Inderjit Klare
Klare, 43, was jailed for 19 years on April 21 after being found guilty of murdering his 40-year-old brother Jasreet in the early hours of October 9 last year at a Bishop Auckland fish and chip shop.
He stabbed his younger brother several times with a kitchen knife and left him to bleed to death on the floor of their family-owned chippy. A disgraced pharmacist, he severed an artery in Jasreet’s right arm.
The court heard how he waited 90 minutes before calling the emergency services, and by the time they arrived his brother had bled to death – an outcome which could have been prevented with basic first aid.
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Brandon Lee
This thug threatened to kill his grandmother and cut her cat’s head off and post it through her letter box before burgling his mother’s home.
Lee, 22, of no fixed abode, made the vile threats when he turned up on the doorstep of his grandmother’s Darlington home when he returned from Blackpool both homeless and hungry. Teesside Crown Court heard how the 22-year-old threatened to ‘kick the door off its hinges’ before being allowed into her home.
Once inside he became agitated and started threatening to kill his grandmother and chop her cat up.
Earlier this month he was sentenced at Teesside Crown Court to two years in custody.
Mark Kilpatrick
Kilpatrick, 50, viciously attacked his stepson with a 15 inch machete after a family row over inheritance in Darlington in January.
He left his stepson, 28-year-old Scott Bass, hospitalised with serious knife wounds which left him needing seven staples to the head, with a 9.5cm cut on his arm and the bone in his thumb exposed.
Kilpatrick was sentenced to four years and eight months in prison on April 13 after pleading guilty at Teesside Crown Court to one count of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and one count of threatening his victim with a blade.
His victim later told the Echo he thought he was going to die after being slashed by his step-father.
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Shaun Gravestock
Crack cocaine addict Gravestock, 22, plundered his grandmother for money to help pay for his drug fix, a court was told.
He repeatedly turned up at his 81-year-old gran’s home, in breach of a civil injunction, seeking “pocket money” and if she refused he often stole from her, at times leaving her virtually penniless.
She would even sit in the dark to make him believe there was no one there in a desperate attempt to deter him from pestering her, Durham Crown Court heard.
Gravestock, of Oak Avenue, Sherburn Road, Durham admitted three counts of theft, plus one each of burglary, criminal damage and stalking. He was last month jailed for two years and eight months and placed under a restraining order to prevent him contacting his grandmother.
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