£44,400 has been secured by West Sussex County Council’s Trading Standards service as compensation for five victims of a rogue builder, following a Proceeds of Crime hearing at the beginning of September.

32-year-old, Samuel Luke Kwame Noye from Horsham, traded as Direct Property Maintenance and misled five homeowners between the ages of 48 and 78 with substandard and overpriced roofing work.

Lewes Crown Court ruled that Mr Noye must repay the money within three months. The sum is part of proceeds from ill-gotten money he unlawfully obtained from his deceitful business practices.

Jo Shiner has been reappointed as the Chief Constable of Sussex Police until 2027.

Mrs Shiner has been chief constable in Sussex since June 2020 but retired on 31 August with plans to rejoin after a short break under the Retire and Rejoin scheme.

Her reappointment was recommended by Katy Bourne, the Police and Crime Commissioner for Sussex.

Mrs Shiner answered questions from councillors as they met to ratify the decision last Friday.

Four men at the centre of a criminal empire buying, dismantling and exporting stolen cars have been sentenced at Brighton Magistrates Court. 

A detailed and painstaking investigation into the gang of four by Surrey Police detectives alongside Metropolitan Police and Hampshire Constabulary counterparts began after a previous case saw various criminals convicted for the theft of over 125 cars.

Officers spent hours scrutinising phone messages and identified this was an organised criminal operation on a huge scale, with car thieves doing the dirty work for a central team who handled the stolen goods.

So began an investigation – spanning 17 months in 2022 and 2023 – to bring down the lynchpins of the crime gang.

Thieves delivered cars stolen from Kent, Hampshire, Dorset, Wiltshire and London. The four organisers worked out of two sites as their ‘chop shops’, where they would dismantle the cars, including a Ferrari that officers found cut in half.

A swift relocation to a second site in Crawley took place last autumn once police had discovered the first site in Horley, but officers quickly tracked the enterprise down at its new HQ.

Michael Kozub, 46 of Tooting Bec Road, Wandsworth, London and Filip Zablocki, 31 of Sadler Close, Mitcham were the central figures. Described as the ‘go-to’ contacts for car thieves across South East England, they organised stolen cars to be delivered to their chop shop and kept in touch with an extensive network of convicted car thieves.

Both pleaded guilty earlier in the year. Kozub was sentenced to six years and three months for conspiracy to receive stolen goods, and the court imposed a serious crime prevention order on him. Zablocki was jailed for two years and eight months, for the same offence as well as possession of cocaine.

Dominik Mrzyglod, 46 of Fernbank Avenue, Walton-on-Thames owned a transportation business and was responsible for getting the stolen cars – whether whole or in parts – out of the UK. Mrzyglod also pleaded guilty as his trial loomed and was sentenced to three years and one month in jail.

Mariusz Parafiniuk, 49 of Kangley Bridge Road, Lewisham, was the gang’s mechanic. He was found guilty of conspiracy to receive stolen goods on Friday, 14 April 2024 after a trial at Guildford Crown Court, where he received a 15-month sentence suspended for two years and will pay £2000 in costs.