A Newport man is starting a prison sentence and a woman has avoided custody after a falling-out between former friends led to smashed windows and a ransacked family home in the city.
Benjamin Sicolo, 37, of Hazlitt Close, Newport, and Chelsea Lyddon, 29, of no fixed abode, were dealt with at Cardiff Crown Court over offences committed on 29 May and 2 June last year.
Sentencing
Sicolo was given a total of 42 months behind bars. Lyddon received a suspended sentence and must complete a mental health treatment requirement and a probation requirement.
Judge Paul Hobson also made 10-year restraining orders against both defendants.
Addressing the pair, the judge said:
“Whatever the reasons for that [falling out], they could not begin to justify what you went on to do.
“You recruited Mr Sicolo to assist.
“Mr Sicolo, you simply should not have become involved in this.
“This must have been a terrifying experience for those inside that building.”
He told Lyddon directly: “As far as I’m concerned, you richly deserve to go to prison for what you did.”
What they admitted
- Burglary
- Possession of a bladed article
- Criminal damage
Sicolo also admitted a second count of criminal damage.
How it started
Prosecutor Abdallah Barakat explained that Lyddon and the woman at the centre of the case used to be friends. After they fell out, Lyddon began bombarding her with threatening messages and voice messages.
Baseball bat at the window
On the afternoon of 29 May, Lyddon turned up outside the home of the woman’s mother in Newport, shouting: “Come on now, get out here.”
She was told to go. Sicolo then tapped on the window with a metal baseball bat before smashing it.
Balaclava, brick and break-in
Sicolo went back to the mother’s address on 2 June. He was wearing a balaclava, had what was described as “a long metal knife” with him, and hurled a brick through the living room window.
Later the same afternoon, the two defendants went to the woman’s own home. Footage captured Lyddon holding a golf club and Sicolo carrying a weapon described as “most likely a hammer”.
Nobody was in at the time, Mr Barakat said. Lyddon broke the glass panels in the front door and Sicolo went in.
The woman later said her house had been “trashed”, with glass strewn everywhere. Treasured pictures were broken, and the kitchen and living room were also damaged. Officers found Sicolo’s blood at the point where he got into the house.
The arrests
Sicolo was later seen walking about with no top on, holding a meat cleaver and “covered in blood”. He ran off, and although he was eventually caught and arrested, the cleaver was never found.
Lyddon was arrested in her car close by. When officers searched the vehicle, they found a knife.
Sicolo admitted the weapons charge on the basis that he had been assaulted earlier that day at a place where the cleaver happened to be. He said he picked it up and walked back to where he was staying. The prosecution accepted that account.
Victim’s statement
In words read out to the court by Mr Barakat, the woman said:
“I felt I couldn’t protect my own kids.
“This could have ended very differently.
“It makes me feel sick.”
Records and mitigation
The court heard that Sicolo had 30 previous convictions for 64 offences. Lyddon had five previous convictions for six offences.
Sol Hartley, representing Sicolo, said the time his client had already spent in custody had “provided him with a significant period away from drug misuse”.
“He seriously regrets becoming involved in a fight between others,” Mr Hartley said. “It spiralled out of control.”
Kevin Seal, for Lyddon, said she had stopped offending between 2015 and 2021 after her children were born. She started again after her partner died.
“She appears to have come out of that dark hole,” Mr Seal said. “She is receiving assistance.”
He added that Lyddon “feels the shame” of being in court.
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