The worst criminals jailed for shocking crimes in Sussex last year

From gruesome murderers to child rapists, we've taken a look back at some of the worst offenders who were sent to prison in 2021.

In the first of a two-part series, these are some of the most shocking crimes committed last year:

Lewis Ashdown

In October, The Argus reported how teenage horror fan Lewis Ashdown stabbed a friend 107 times in a macabre knife attack - before going to see a horror film.

Ashdown went to the cinema to watch The Conjuring 3: The Devil Made Me Do It, which contained similarities to the shocking murder.

A court was told there were three scenes in the Hollywood film resembling the merciless attack on Marc Williams in a wooded area of Fairwarp, near Uckfield.

After his trip to the cinema, Ashdown, now 20, got drunk and told a friend he had done something terrible - laughing as he showed him video clips from the scene.

Ashdown, who forced Marc, 18, to drink alcohol before luring him into woodland, took more than an hour of footage, both before and after the crime.

He gouged out Marc's eyes before dumping him in a river.

Videos from that night were too harrowing to be shown at Lewes Crown Court.

The jury was told there was no explanation for the extreme brutality of the sustained and prolonged attack, which was of a sexual or sadistic nature.

Ashdown plunged a knife, taken from his mother's kitchen, into Marc's back.

Then, as Marc pleaded for him to call an ambulance, Ashdown stabbed him more than 100 times.

He later confided in his friend that he felt the urge to kill and did not want to stop.

The friend told the police: "All he wanted to do was kill, he said he felt good about it and Marc deserved it.

"He said 'I felt good about it and he deserved to die'."

When Marc phoned his family to say he was drunk and heading home, Ashdown reassured them that he would get him home safely.

Instead he killed him in a "horrific, ghastly and gruesome murder" before dumping his half-naked body in a stream.

Judge Christine Laing QC jailed him for life with a minimum sentence of 27 years.

She said: "You killed Marc Williams for some perverted reason of your own which we may never know or understand."

Robert Cameron Wells

In July, The Argus reported how Robert Cameron Wells, a doctor, built a makeshift film studio before drugging an eight-year-old boy to make sick videos.

The boy was forced to abuse a young girl while they were filmed at a converted scrapyard office, somewhere in Sussex, in October 1998.

Wells, who directed while another man operated the camera, is already serving two lengthy sentences for similar child sex abuse offences.

Robert Wells has been sentenced for life.

The 69-year-old could now spend the rest of his life in prison after being convicted of a further 19 offences.

The boy was visiting Brighton for a birthday party when he was targeted by Wells, who had a private practice in the city.

He said he went along with Wells because he knew he was a police doctor.

The boy was given a white pill before being driven to a cabin where Wells and another man had set up their studio.

He told police it was a windowless room which was empty apart from lights, a camera and a hospital-style bed.

"He said come on you can do it, you're going to be like an actor, you're going to be a star," the boy said.

"He kept saying 'don't look at the camera'.

"It was a dark room, I don't think there were any windows, it had quite a low ceiling."

The jury at Lewes Crown Court found Wells guilty on two counts of indecency with a child and another charge of attempting to make an indecent image of a child.

As well as being found guilty of three offences, he also admitted 16 charges against three more victims.

These include multiple offences of indecent assault, rape and filming of a girl and her sisters who he befriended in Brighton.

He was sentenced to life in prison.

Keats Harvey

Keats Harvey was arrested at his home in West Wittering, near Chichester, in May last year and charged with 14 counts of child sexual abuse offences.

In October, The Argus reported how Harvey, originally from the US, sought jobs at nurseries and hospitals in the UK to meet and abuse young people.

Almost 9,000 indecent images of children and 630 prohibited images were discovered on his electronic devices, which he had collated between 2015 and 2020.

Of these, 860 were category A - the most severe and extreme category for child pornography.

Investigators also discovered a large number of chat logs and emails in which he had sent and received these images from other like-minded individuals, as well as admitting to having molested three children.

He met his victims through other adults and made several attempts to meet and abuse children by befriending vulnerable adults with children.

The 24-year-old was found guilty of all charges at Hove Crown Court in July this year, which included six counts of possessing indecent images of children, two counts of assaulting a child under 13 by touching and meeting a girl under 16 following grooming.