In that time there have been cases which shocked and appalled readers in equal measure.
They include a carer who stole from a dementia patient and a man who took a samurai sword to his neighbour’s door after he got drunk whilst making a cake.
At the halfway point of 2026, we’ve taken a look back at seven of the most shocking cases the News Shopper has reported on this year.
Carers who stole from vulnerable clients
Carer Fartun Ali and support worker James Huxted were both sentenced for stealing from vulnerable clients (Image: Met Police)
In strikingly similar but separate cases, a support worker and a carer were convicted of stealing from vulnerable clients.
Support worker James Huxted was sentenced to 10 months in prison in May, after he repeatedly used a bank card belonging to a 63-year-old man with complex needs.
The victim was a man with learning difficulties who Huxted worked with at a supported living facility in Bexley.
Woolwich Crown Court heard that Huxted was initially suspected of stealing up to £16,000, but police could only prove around £2,000.
The victim was living semi-independently before the theft, but the court heard he had subsequently taken many steps backwards.
“He thought James was a friend. It feels like a bereavement to him. One minute he was there, the next he was gone,” said a care manager.
A month later, care worker Fartun Ali received a suspended sentence after she stole more than £18,000 from a 79-year-old woman with dementia.
Woolwich Crown Court heard that the victim received full-time care at her home in Lewisham due to her illness and required help with her finances.
When the victim’s original carer went on long-term sick leave, Ali took responsibility for the victim.
But between May and August 2025, Ali used the victim’s bank card to withdraw cash on 72 different occasions.
When she was arrested in late 2025, police discovered £18,500 in the boot of Ali’s car.
Read the full stories below:
Toddler killed by mum’s ex
Kol Page was subjected to escalating violence from his mum’s ex-boyfriend Scott O’Connor (Image: MPS)
The horrific killing of toddler four-year-old Kol Page in Bromley made headlines in May, when his mum and her ex-boyfriend were jailed.
Kol died from catastrophic brain injuries that were caused while in the couple’s care in April 2022.
It was later revealed that he had been repeatedly beaten over several months, with the pair lying to friends about him having accidents.
Although both Scott O’Connor and Zoe Coutts were cleared of murder, O’Connor was found guilty of manslaughter and Coutts was convicted of causing or allowing the death of a child.
Prosecutors said Kol’s “catastrophic” injuries were of the force “seen in a serious road traffic accident or a fall from a height onto a hard object”.
Detective Chief Inspector Kate Blackburn, whose homicide team led the investigation, said: “Kol was an innocent little boy who suffered horrific abuse in the place where he should have been safest – at home with his mother.
“Coutts and her boyfriend, O’Connor, tried to deceive paramedics, doctors and police officers, repeating lie after lie about how Kol came to be so seriously injured.”
Sword attack
Doorbell footage of a man covered in blood swinging a samurai sword caught News Shopper reader’s attention in February.
Jan Dziedzic caused mayhem outside a woman’s flat in Clydesdale Way, Belvedere, on November 11 last year.
The 36-year-old said he had no memory of the night after he got drunk on brandy whilst making a Christmas cake, but footage showed him covered in blood and repeatedly banging on his neighbour’s door whilst waving a long samurai sword.
The Japanese culture enthusiast was jailed for one year in February after he pleaded guilty to affray, criminal damage and possessing a bladed article in public.
Judge Ruth Downing said she was “troubled” enough by Dziedzic’s behaviour that she felt she had no choice but to send him to prison.
“You were covered in blood and no doubt to your neighbours, decent human beings, this was an alarming sight,” Judge Downing said.
“Your neighbour suffered genuine distress. Why should she have to go through that?”
Tragic case of Peter Maughan
Peter Maughan was killed by an ‘angry’ driver and his passenger in a deliberate hit-and-run (Image: PA/Kent Police)
The tragic case of four-year-old Peter Maughan, killed in a hit-and-run in Dartford, made headlines nationally as well as locally in early 2026.
Driver Owen Maughan, 27, and his dad, front seat passenger Patrick Maughan, 54, were sentenced in march to more than 12 years and 18 years respectively for the manslaughter of their young relative.
Jurors had heard the pair had been drinking in Rochester earlier that day, and had about 12 bottles of beer and 13 pints respectively, before they began driving their Ford Ranger pick-up truck home.
They came across a similar vehicle and pulled up alongside it before there was shouting between the two cars, with Owen and Patrick Maughan “terrorising” and “chasing” the other car along the A2 in Kent for several miles.
Owen Maughan drove into the wrong lane on the approach to a blind bend and clipped the Ford pick-up truck at about 60mph, and the car rolled over three times.
The pair were also sentenced for inflicting grievous bodily harm on Peter’s father, Lovell Mahon, who was driving the family car and suffered serious injuries including a skull fracture and will never walk again.
GP boss stole £150,000
Former GP manager Christian Jennings was jailed for stalking and fraud (Image: Essex Police)
The former manager of a south east London GP surgery made headlines in May when the News Shopper revealed he stole more than £150,000 of NHS money.
Christian Jennings, 63, was practice manager at Camberwell Green Surgery when he raised false invoices and diverted genuine payments to his own bank account between 2013 and 2019.
When he left the surgery in 2019, the new practice manager noticed suspicious payments and instructed a financial audit which revealed Jennings had stolen £151,841.
He was arrested in 2023, then went on to commit an even more menacing crime after developing a bizarre obsession with an accountant from Portsmouth.
Between January and August 2025, he sent six anonymous letters. In one letter, he called her a “total tramp”, while in another he included a picture of a dartboard and wrote “you are marked, darling”.
In a later letter, he shared a photo of her puppy and wrote “be extra careful when out with your little pup, anything could happen in that situation”.
Jennings pleaded guilty to both fraud by abuse of position and stalking. In May, he was sentenced to two years and four months in prison.
Broad daylight stabbing
Jaheim Nyende-Horsford stabbed a man 20 times (Image: Met Police)
A knife attack witnessed by children made headlines in March, as Jaheim Nyende-Horsford was jailed for 10 years.
The 20-year-old attacked a youth in Derwent Street, Greenwich, in May 2025.
Woolwich Crown Court heard that Nyende-Horsford “held a grudge” after the victim had approached him in the street to ask if he had any cannabis.
He walked away only to return to the victim minutes later armed with a large knife and with a balaclava covering his face.
Nyende-Horsford stabbed the youth a total of 20 times, five of the stab wounds were inflicted after the victim was lying defenceless on the ground.
Judge Ben Gumpert said: “This was an attack committed in broad daylight and in a public place, with members of the public including children understandably disturbed by the savage nature of this attack.”
