Leighton Stanley(Image: South Wales Police)A man wrote bizarre letters to a senior Welsh judge claiming to be the king and calling on him to issue a warrant for the arrest of the “false” King Charles. Leighton Stanley told the judge that if he didn’t arrange for Charles III to be arrested he would find himself being executed for treason.
Swansea Crown Court heard Stanley wrote the letters while on remand after being charged with sexual offences against a girl and a woman. The judge to whom the letters were sent said they were symptomatic of the 47-year-old defendant’s mental health at the time.
Georgia Donohue, prosecuting, told the court that in 2003 a child disclosed to her mother that Stanley had carried out sex acts on her and warned her that if she told anyone about “their secret” Santa would not bring her any Christmas presents. The court heard defendant was interviewed about the allegations to but no further action was taken against him and the investigation was “closed”. Don’t miss a court report by signing up to our crime newsletter here.
The prosecutor said Stanley subsequently told a friend about what he had done and the friend reported the disclosures to the police. The defendant was spoken to and denied the allegation.
The defendant himself then rang police in 2011 to report what he had done. He was interviewed again but claimed he had been drunk when he made the call and denied the offending. The prosecutor said: “The investigation did not go further.”
The court heard in the summer of 2023 Stanley did a livestream on social media app TikTok from the the middle of Cardiff in which he claimed “God is a paedophile” and said he carried out the sex acts on the little girl to “protect her from paedophiles” because he could “smell her pheromones”. He also said he hoped his TikTok video would go viral and been seen by eight billion people.
The broadcast was reported to police and Stanley was arrested.
The prosecutor said following this incident a woman came forward to police to report a series of sexual assaults previously carried out by the defendant during which he had boasted about the size of his penis and promised to give her “the time of your life”.
Leighton Stanley, formerly of High Street, Glynneath, but now of no fixed abode, had previously pleaded guilty to indecent assault of a child, six offences of sexual assault of a woman, and a malicious communications offence – the TikTok video – when he appeared in the dock for sentencing. He has 13 previous convictions for 25 offences including violence, criminal damage, drugs matters, and driving matters.
Andrew Evans, for Stanley, said the TikTok video had been made at a time when the defendant’s mental health had been at its lowest. He said his client had been on remand for the best part of two years and large periods of that time had been spent in health units. He said Stanley was now medicated and was back in the prison system and he said the defendant acknowledges that his medication has led to a significant improvement in his mental health.
Judge Paul Thomas KC said he should put on the record that the defendant had written letters of a “particularly striking nature” to him in which he had claimed to the “rightful king” and demanded that a warrant be issued for the arrest of the “false” King Charles III. The judge said Stanley had told him that if he did not issue such a warrant he would face execution for treason and said Stanley had been demanding a trillion pounds in compensation for being locked up.
Judge Thomas said the defendant’s mental health had “clearly spiralled out of control” and the letters he wrote to the court were an example of his state of mind. He said references in the pre-sentence report to Stanley saying he wants to stop his medication were “a cause of great concern”.
The judge said the police’s failure to act sooner in regard to the child sex offence despite “compelling evidence” was “an absolute disgrace”.
With a one-third discount for his guilty pleas Stanley was made the subject of an extended eight-and-a-half-year sentence comprising four and a half years in custody followed by a four-year licence period.
South Wales Police said an investigation was launched following the reports in 2003 – including a doctor’s report – but no further action was taken due to lack of medical evidence to support the allegations.
The matter was examined again in 2011 following Stanley’s drunken call to the police but when interviewed sober he subsequently denied the allegations and, in the light of evidence gathered in the 2003 investigation along with the admissions in his call not matching the initial report, the matter was not progressed. The force said a new investigation was launched following disclosures made on TikTok which led to the defendant’s conviction.
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