Jailed: 10 Shropshire criminals sent to prison in January for theft, drug dealing and sadistic abuse

Amongst the usual slew of thieves and perverts, the courts have been teeming with cases of varying magnitude since we last looked back in January.

Notably, January saw a particularly harrowing case of a 77-year-old man from Market Drayton, who was jailed after subjecting his children to years of abuse that a judge dubbed “sadistic" and "gratuitous”.

The court heard his heinous acts included killing the family's pet rabbit and forcing the children to eat it for supper.

Later in the month, a Shropshire physiotherapist was sentenced to 15 months behind bars after being found guilty of sexually assaulting a woman when she attended his practice in Mardol, Shrewsbury for treatment for a painful knee.  

Here are those and some of the other cases the Shropshire Star reported on throughout the month.

Disguise-wearing shoplifter dubbed 'Satchel Man' banned from all Boots stores 

Craig Sawyer, 51, of no fixed abode, was convicted of a host charges of theft when he appeared at Kidderminster Magistrates Court on January 6.

Sawyer, who was known to dye his hair and use different glasses and coats to disguise his appearance, had targeted shops in Shrewsbury, Newport, as well as numerous others in Worcestershire. 

Police said witnesses described Sawyer's use of different methods to disguise his appearance - but that he always took a favourite brown shoulder bag with him, earning him the nickname of ‘Satchel Man’ in many of the stores he targeted.

As a result of the hearing he is now banned from the county of Worcestershire and all Boots stores nationally under the terms of his Criminal Behaviour Order (CBO).

'Sadistic bully' who 'forced children to eat family pet'

 A 77-year-old from the Market Drayton area, who a court ordered not be named to protect the identity of his victims, on one occasion killed the family's pet rabbit and forced the children to eat it for supper, Shrewsbury Crown Court heard in early January.

On another occasion, he made the children choose between the two family dogs, before dumping one in the countryside, while the children watched it chase the family car as it drive off.

Prosecutor Mr Anthony Longsworth said the man put the children through “sadistic gratuitous” abuse with incidents of physical and mental humiliation that spanned their entire childhoods.

In passing sentence the judge said he was “bound” by the sentencing guidelines of 40 years ago. He jailed the man for three and a half years, telling him: “You were a bully and a sadist.”