Two men who attacked members of the public in Ramsgate have been jailed for a combined six and a half years.
Michael Rowe, 26, and Aston Cocks, 28, left two victims injured following the assaults in King Street, Ramsgate in January 2020.
Rowe, from Margate, was also subsequently charged with dealing heroin and cocaine following a separate investigation by Kent Police’s County Lines and Gangs Team.
At Canterbury Crown Court on 8 December 2021, Rowe was jailed for a total of four and a half years after admitting causing grievous bodily harm and being concerned in the supply of class A drugs.
Cocks, formerly of Sussex Street, Ramsgate, was given a two-year sentence after he admitted causing grievous bodily harm and causing actual bodily harm. That will be added to a three-year sentence he is already serving for another offence.
Assaults
Rowe and Cocks were seen to be in an argument outside a pub in King Street on 12 January 2020 and a woman who was in the premises came out to ask them to behave. Cocks then punched the woman twice to the face, knocking her to ground.
A man then came out to try to protect the woman and was also knocked to the ground before being repeatedly kicked and punched to the head by Cocks. As the woman got up, Rowe ran at her and punched her, knocking her into a wall.
The woman suffered serious injuries from which she is still recovering nearly two years on from the incident.
Drug dealing
The two assailants were recognised following a review of CCTV footage and Cocks was arrested later the same month and Rowe in the following month.
Shortly after Rowe was charged over the assault, but before his first court appearance, Kent Police’s County Lines and Gangs Team carried out a warrant at his home in Margate on 13 October 2021, as part of their investigation into the ‘Jango’ county line.
A mobile phone was found in his bed from which text messages had been sent offering heroin and crack cocaine to local drug users. He was arrested at the scene and charged with supplying drugs.
Justice
PC Simon Rolfe, Kent Police’s investigating officer for the assaults, said: ‘This was a horrific attack on two people who posed no harm to either Rowe or Cocks and were merely trying to quieten things down.
‘The long-term impact on one of the victims has been extremely upsetting for all involved and I hope the fact that these two men are now in jail offers her some sense that justice has been done.’
Detective Constable Karl Shonhard, from Kent Police’s County Lines and Gangs Team, said: ‘These cases show how those involved in incidents of serious violence on our streets are so often the same people dealing drugs to local people.
‘We will not cease to disrupt, arrest and shut down county lines networks to protect vulnerable people from the often violent criminals who make up these groups.’