Convicted sex offender John Maunder was serving his sentence at Winchester Prison A PENSIONER convicted of a number of shocking sex offences died in police custody following a battle with cancer and coronavirus. An inquest into the death of Swindon offender John Maunder was held yesterday, February 2, following his death at Royal Hampshire County Hospital, in Winchester, on April 20. The 79-year-old was serving a 13-year jail term for a series of sex offences including seven rapes, which were reported to have been committed in the 1970s. An inquest heard how Maunder was suffering a series of long term health problems including a number of aggressive tumours on his spine, which left him virtually immobilised .
TWO Basingstoke men found with kitchen knives in public have been fined. Richard James Evans, of Cleaver Road, South Ham, was found to be in possession of the blade in Basingstoke on May 1, 2020. Pleading guilty at Basingstoke Magistrates Court earlier this week, the 39-year-old was fined £66, and ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £34. In a separate incident, 19-year-old Joshua Melfi was found with a black handled kitchen knife on June 28, 2019. He was given a community order, where he must participate in 25 rehabilitation activity days. The court heard that because the defendant was a juvenile at the time of the offence, the sentence should be akin to that he would have received at that age.
COVID rates are falling faster in Winchester district than anywhere else in Hampshire, today s figures confirm. The district is now in the top ten per cent of districts for infection rates with only 26 out of 315 in the UK doing better, and none in Hampshire. The
Chronicle has reported the daily figures since last summer and was first to report the trend for declining infection rates around three weeks ago. All parts of the Winchester district are now below the England average as rates improve in
Winchester East, Whiteley Knowle and Wickham, and
Bishop s Waltham and Waltham Chase. But infection rates are climbing in