Man died on bench in central Cardiff
An inquest heard he had been making plans for his future
Callaghan Square, Cardiff
(Image: Richard Williams / WalesOnline)
A 39-year-old homeless man whose body was found on a bench in central Cardiff died due to a combination of heart disease and drug use, an inquest has found. Pontypridd coroner's court heard Peter Geoffrey Lewis' body was discovered on the afternoon of July 20 last year on a bench in Callaghan Square, Butetown. Coroner Kerrie Burge said: "Efforts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful and Peter was pronounced deceased at the scene. Peter had been homeless for a while and struggled with drug and alcohol use."
Nine days before his death Mr Lewis had been taken to hospital and made threats of self-harm but Ms Burge said there was also evidence he was "making plans for the future". Ms Burge added: "Peter had used a number of drugs prior to his death but these were not at toxic levels."
Recording her conclusion, the coroner said: "On the balance of probabilities, Peter died due to a combination of natural heart disease aggravated by drug use."
Article continues below
In a statement shortly after the Newport-born man's death, a South Wales Police spokesperson said officers were called just after 2.20pm on July 20 with a report of an unresponsive man lying on a bench. The square was taped off as an investigation took place.
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Wales Online
2 hours ago
- Wales Online
We easily bought illegal vapes and cigarettes across Wales, then we confronted the shopkeepers
We easily bought illegal vapes and cigarettes across Wales, then we confronted the shopkeepers 'Nobody has come to tell us to remove them' Swansea shopkeepers we caught selling illegal nicotine products (Image: WalesOnline) "If this street could talk," reads the façade of a disused unit in St Helen's Road. The time we spent on the Swansea shopping street suggested the tale might not be a happy one. Interspersed with the street's many fast food joints and barber's are six vape shops, all but one of which offered our undercover journalists illegal nicotine products. These ranged from disposable vapes — banned in June — to super-cheap packets of foreign cigarettes with no clear health warning. When we asked one shopkeeper if he knew his products were against the law, he replied with a nonchalant half-smile: "Yeah. It's no problem." Our first visit to St Helen's Road came earlier this year when Peshawa Zada, the then-shopkeeper at Bob Marley Vapes, sold us a Chinese-made vape for £10. This was before disposable vapes were banned across the UK, but even then its 10ml tank was five times bigger than the maximum. We also bought two counterfeit 20-packs of Benson & Hedges from him for £5 each. Peshawa Zada, of Bob Marley Vapes (Image: Conor Gogarty) The shop was raided shortly afterwards by Swansea council, which said 23-year-old Zada had been hiding thousands of black market cigarettes and vapes above a fluorescent light fitting. In July he was sentenced to a year and 10 months in jail. Our purchases at the Bob Marley shop were part of an investigation in which we found seven shops in Cardiff, Swansea and Pontypridd offering illegal cigarettes or single-use vapes that breached the regulations at the time. Now, two months into the ban on all disposable vapes, we have returned to St Helen's Road and found other shopkeepers flagrantly breaking the law. In Vape City, the sale of illicit vapes could hardly have been more blatant. Their staggeringly low price, £1, was felt-tipped across an A4 sheet to draw customers to shelves of colourfully-packaged disposables. Vape City shopkeeper answering questions from WalesOnline reporter (Image: WalesOnline) When we asked the shopkeeper if he knew they were banned, he said: "Yeah, I think so." He told us he had bought the vapes in January at £2 each and that since the ban he had been selling them at a £1 loss to get rid of them. Asked if the council had visited since the ban, he replied: "No, nobody has come to tell us to remove them. Before June one lady from the council came but she didn't say anything, she just left some letters." "I just have to sell them," he went on. "What should I do? I am already losing a lot of money." A disused shop in St Helen's Road, Swansea (Image: John Myers / WalesOnline) Did he not care that he was breaking the law? "You know what, listen brother, honestly, I don't even understand the difference between the refillable ones and the disposable ones. They are the same nicotine, they do the same thing, honestly." Environmental concerns were a major factor in the UK Government's decision to ban disposables, which damage ecosystems by releasing lead and mercury. Last year almost five million single-use vapes were littered or thrown away in general waste. The Government also said the ban could improve public health by "curbing the rise in youth vaping", as most children reported they favoured disposables. The man behind the counter at Vape City promised to ditch the single-use vapes ("just come back tomorrow, you will see") but there was no such assurance a few doors down at Asia Vape. WalesOnline challenges Asia Vape shopkeeper on sale of illegal cigarettes and vapes (Image: WalesOnline) At Asia Vape we spent £9 on a single-use Chinese 'lemon and lime' Hayati Pro Max vape which even before the ban would have been prohibited given its 10ml tank size. The woman at the till also disappeared into a back room to fetch us 20 cigarettes in Polish-language packaging, available for £7.50 — around half what a legal pack costs in the UK. We asked her why she was selling cigarettes that did not even have an English-language health warning. "I don't know what is not allowed," she said. Why were the cigarettes concealed then? There was no reply from the woman, who answered a call on her mobile and retreated further into the shop. St Helen's Road is also home to a vape business called Swansea Market, where the shopkeeper went into a staff room to get his hidden wares. He brought us a 20-pack of cigarettes branded 'Platinum Seven' — its only health warning printed in tiny lettering on one side — and charged just £5. Swansea Market shopkeeper asks for illegal cigarettes back, moments after selling them to WalesOnline (Image: WalesOnline) Though it is not a recognised brand in the UK, more than £7m worth of illicit Platinum Seven cigarettes were seized by the Irish tax authority in a 2023 raid on a vehicle in County Louth. The pack we bought displayed the name of a firm which, according to Companies House, was based in London and run by a man from Tunisia before it was dissolved in late 2023. When we challenged the Swansea Market worker, he told us it was "no problem" that the cigarettes were illegal. Then, realising we were filming, his demeanour became more hostile as he demanded back the packet he had just sold us. He denied he had known the cigarettes were illegal and claimed they were from a friend who had been on holiday, adding: "I sell it for myself, two or three packages." Asked what country the product was from, he replied: "Iran. Everywhere." Shopkeeper at Kubus Superstore (Image: WalesOnline) The same Platinum Seven brand was available at nearby Kubus Superstore, again costing £5 and again brought out from a hidden part of the shop. The shopkeeper did not appear to speak English so he called a colleague, who then emerged from the back room but did not respond to our questions other than swearing as he ushered us out. Elsewhere on St Helen's Road, City Vape (not to be confused with the nearby Vape City) did not offer us any black market goods and neither did Bob Marley Vapes (on our most recent visit). But that was not the only street where we caught businesses breaking the law. At Snoop Vape Store, opposite Swansea railway station, the man behind the counter — in his early 20s at most — pulled a pack of 20 Benson & Hedges "Switch" cigarettes from his pocket and sold it to us for £5. Shopkeeper at Snoop Vape Store, opposite Swansea railway station (Image: WalesOnline) Cigarettes in the same packaging, which showed a manufacturing address in Nigeria, were among the illicit products we caught two Cardiff shops selling in our previous investigation. Benson & Hedges told us the cigarettes were not only illegal in the UK but appeared to also be counterfeit. When we asked the Snoop Vape Store worker if the shop was paying tax on the £5 cigarette packs, he replied: "I don't know, I am just training, my brother." With a wide-eyed expression of shock, he asked us: "Is that one illegal, brother?" The shopkeeper suggested we ask our questions into his phone so an app could translate to his native language, but this failed to yield substantive answers. He did tell us he had been working in the shop for two days. 'Dead flies and asbestos' Illegal vapes and cigarettes we bought from shops in Swansea (Image: WalesOnline) As well as being cheaper than legal brands, illicit cigarettes can be more dangerous. The Local Government Association has warned that some contain "human excrement, dead flies and asbestos". When the UK Government announced the ban on disposable vapes, it said they had been "a key driver behind the alarming rise in youth vaping, with the proportion of 11- to 17-year-old vapers using disposables increasing almost ninefold in the last two years". Reacting to the evidence gathered by WalesOnline, Prof Jim McManus from Public Health Wales said: "Illegal tobacco and vape products are unregulated and often contain harmful or toxic substances at levels that can be unsafe, posing significant health risks. We strongly advise people not to buy these products." Swansea council, which brought the recent prosecution against Zada, told us: "The sale of illegal vapes and counterfeit tobacco in Swansea is continuing to be a priority for our trading standards team and successful prosecutions against shops selling these items have been carried in recent years. We have a number of ongoing investigations underway linked to a number of shops across the city that our officers have visited in recent months. Kubus Superstore was among those on St Helen's Road that sold illegal products (Image: John Myers / WalesOnline) "Along with tackling the direct sale of illegal vapes and counterfeit tobacco in shops in the city, we are also working with police to prevent the distribution of these goods to stores and have recently carried out targeted stops of known vehicles in the city, confiscating large quantities of tobacco." The Welsh Government said it had been working with trading standards to support enforcement against illegal vape and tobacco sales. Its spokesman added: 'We continue to raise awareness of the bans with businesses. We recognise that the problem of illegal vapes and tobacco is complex and affecting every community in Wales." Article continues below Responding to the fake Benson & Hedges cigarettes on offer, the brand's public affairs manager Ian Howell said: "Insufficient funding and powers for enforcement agencies, combined with years of escalating tobacco duty, has contributed to the rapid growth of this black market. This is a matter we take very seriously and we'll continue to assist law enforcement, including carrying out undercover 'test purchasing' projects to identify unscrupulous retailers who are selling these unregulated products." If you know of a story in Wales that we should be investigating, email us at
Wales Online
7 hours ago
- Wales Online
Woman arrested during protest in Cardiff city centre
Woman arrested during protest in Cardiff city centre Fellow demonstrators chanted 'let her go' The woman was taken by police from the scene A woman has been arrested by police in Cardiff during a rally. Around 100 people joined a protest on the afternoon of Saturday, August 9, outside the UK Government buildings in the city centre over UK Government intervention in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Around ten officers from South Wales Police formed a barricade around the protestor as others began chanting "let her go" before she was removed from the scene by police. South Wales Police has since confirmed there was one arrest at the event, near Central Square, and the woman remains in custody. One attendee, Hannah, was protesting over Israeli actions in Palestine. She said: "We have been protesting in Cardiff every Saturday since October 2023. We are here today especially to take a stand against the forced starvation happening in Palestine. Never miss a Cardiff story by signing up to our daily newsletter here "We are here to take a stand against the government's complicity in the situation in Palestine." Protestors gathered outside the UK Government building in Cardiff (Image: Abyd Quinn Aziz) Hussein, who works for Black Lives Matter Cardiff and Vale, said: "We are peacefully protesting to stop the genocide, to hold the government to account for giving weapons to Israel, to letting this continue to happen. "We are showing our solidarity to show Palestinians that people around the world will not stop until this is over. " Article continues below A spokesperson for South Wales Police said: "South Wales Police supports the right for people to make their voices heard through protest providing it is done lawfully. "A protest took place in the vicinity of Central Square, Cardiff, today (August 9) and the majority were able to attend safely and lawfully. One woman was arrested and remains in custody."
Daily Record
16 hours ago
- Daily Record
Married care worker guilty of inciting boy at children's home into sexual relationship
Lindy Leah 'fell in love' with a teenage boy living at the children's home where she worked as deputy manager. A care worker has been found guilty of inciting a teenage boy at the children's home where she worked into a sexual relationship. Lindy Leah, 44, was said to have "fallen in love" with the youngster, who lived at the St Helens home where she was deputy manager. Liverpool Crown Court heard she wore inappropriate and revealing outfits around him and sent a string of WhatsApp messages including one asking him "for a love bite" and another encouraging him to go missing so they could have a drug-fuelled "night away". Leah, of Capesthorne Road, Orford, Warrington, denied any wrongdoing, claiming she saw herself as a "mother figure" to the boy as his key worker, reports Wales Online. However, a jury found her guilty of being a person in a position of trust who caused or incited a child to engage in sexual activity. The jury of six men and six women returned their verdicts after deliberating yesterday morning, August 8. Leah was remanded in custody until sentencing next month. Jurors were told Leah bombarded the boy with messages, at one point telling him she was "proper paranoid" that she had "lost him to a slag" before adding: "If you never met me then your life would be better. I miss you so much. All I want is for me and you to have a night away from everyone, just us. So if I wake up from these tablets and wine, then we will." Leah then went on to add: "Do you wanna go MSC [missing from care]? I love you so much. Can I book somewhere for me and you on Friday? Red and silky with some balloons and flake." Graham Pickavance, prosecuting, told the court that "balloons" was a "colloquial term" for the class C drug nitrous oxide. In a further message, Leah said to the teen: "Just listened to a song and it made me cry. Stupid love songs. It made me think of you, then it made me cry. I won't be listening to that again." A former colleague of Leah's, who the ECHO has chosen not to name for legal reasons, was also called to give evidence. Appearing from behind a screen in the witness box, she recalled an incident during her first shift at the home and said: "As I went into one of the staff bedrooms, she was in there, Lindy Leah and the young person. "The young person was laying across the bed with Lindy Leah in the bedroom. I couldn't believe my eyes [The boy ] was on his phone, as if it was normal. "I was just dismayed. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I knew the protocol of a young person being in a member of staff's bedroom. It was not supposed to happen, full stop. I tried to speak to Lindy Leah to say it was inappropriate. She told me he's always in there, he looks comfortable and no one else has a problem. I was very concerned." The witness described Leah's behaviour as "unnaturally friendly and excitable". She said: "It was like you haven't seen a friend for a long time and you get excited. It was like that continually. It was like he was her best friend. It was so unprofessional." Asked whether she also had "concerns about the way she dressed" in work, the witness replied: "Almost every time I was working with her, absolutely. Her physical appearance, she always wore revealing clothes that were not suitable for a care home and for a member of staff looking after young people. "There was one type of suit she had, different colour of bodysuits. It's like a Lycra, all in one. It's skin tight. You could see she wasn't wearing a bra, you could see when she was wearing a thong and you could tell when she wasn't wearing either." The carer described one occasion where the boy was present in a staff room, saying: "Lindy, went 'oo, [ boy's name], look, I've got no knickers, I've just had a shower and forgot to bring clean knickers'. She pulled her suit up. You could see the outline of her vagina. She went 'oo, look, you can even see my nipples as well'. He was laughing." The woman went on to recount another incident where she had been painting one of the residents' bedrooms, saying of this: "Lindy opened the door and leant through. On her breast, she got some paint on her jumper. "There was a long corridor. She looked out and said, '[ boy's name], I've got paint on my top' and pulled her jumper off to reveal a cami top. She went 'oo, look' and started wobbling her belly and breasts to him." The witness was then questioned over a holiday which apparently Leah went on in order to celebrate her 25th wedding anniversary, but said of this: "She did not want to go. She said she didn't love her husband and only married him for his money, her son is a spoiled brat. Join the Daily Record WhatsApp community! Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by joining our WhatsApp community today. You'll receive daily updates on breaking news as well as the top headlines across Scotland. No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Daily Record team. All you have to do is click here if you're on mobile, select 'Join Community' and you're in! If you're on a desktop, simply scan the QR code above with your phone and click 'Join Community'. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose 'exit group'. If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice. "She said to her daughter on her phone, I just wish she'd die. She said she didn't want to go because she'd miss [the boy ]." When Leah was interviewd by detectives after concerns came to light, she "denied any improper behaviour". When Leah was released on bail under conditions not to contact the boy, the two were spotted together weeks later beside a white Audi car at Walton Hall and Gardens in Warrington by a fellow care worker. In her evidence, Leah was asked by her counsel Rebecca Filletti asked what training she had received prior to taking on the job. She told the court: "In my interview, I told them I was a mother. My training was based on being a mum. "I seen the kids as my children. I wanted to show them how kids thrive with a good mother around them. That's the only way I knew to be. We tried to make it as homely as possible. That's what we wanted for the children, to make it as much as a home environment as we could. "I just took on this role of his mother. I really seen him as my son, my kid. I adored him. We were little besties. We were a little team. "It was incredibly naïve and unprofessional of me to behave like that. I just got incredibly emotionally involved and looked at him like a son. He seemed so unloved by everyone around him. He just didn't have a relationship with his family. He had no one. He seen me as his mother. I took on that role and really looked out for him." Speaking of the incident regarding the paint on her jumper, Leah said: "I don't recall it. [Her colleague] was painting, so it could have happened. I would have took my jumper off. I always wear vest tops under my clothes. I wouldn't have been wiggling my body around to anybody." In relation to the accusation concerning the bodysuit, Leah added: "Never. I do believe, if there was other staff present, somebody would have said something. I would never do that." When referred to a series of stays at caravan parks in Cheshire and North Wales with the boy, Leah stated: "It was organised professionally, through the company. It was a school holiday. He wouldn't go camping. He agreed to do this. He wanted to go for steak, he wanted to do something nice." When probed about her WhatsApp messages with the boy, she added: "I'd been drinking. It was unprofessional, and I shouldn't have been messaging [the boy ]. "I wanted to take him away, get him away from the things he was doing, the people he was around. I wanted him to have a nice night away and have some food, just getting away from all the things he was doing, just me and him. "I thought it was best he went with me, so he could be himself. Just to get him away and let him be a kid. I was just trying to look out for him. I didn't mean to say missing from care. I'd been drinking all day. I didn't need to take him from care." Of the "red and silky with some balloons and flake" message, Leah said: "I was joking. I have a dry sense of humour. He knows how I felt about drugs. I meant wine. I was being silly, dramatic. He knows I'm joking. I was making fun of balloons, is it nitrous oxide?" Leah also denied taking drugs with the boy, and when asked whether there was "any intention for this trip to be sexual", replied: "Absolutely not. No." Having been shown a picture which was recovered from her phone and showed the teen holding a balloon in his mouth, she told jurors: "[The boy ] doesn't particularly like his teeth. That's the only picture he would let me take, of him blowing up a balloon." Ms Filletti went on to ask, "in general terms, what do you think of those messages?". Leah replied: "I think they're completely unprofessional and inappropriate. I think I acted on fear. I think I was acting like a mother, or we were friends. "[The boy ] didn't have anybody that cared about him. He was so alone. He just attached himself to me. I'm just a really loving person. I just loved him and really looked out for him. I thought he was my son. I thought he was my little friend. I had such an emotional, maternal attachment to him. It's inappropriate. It's not ok. "My heart was in the right place. I actually thought I was doing the best job by him. There's a reason why these rules were put in place. I broke them. I thought I was doing right by him. I thought I was showing him unconditional love by a mother. I was just digging holes." Of another message, in which Leah suggested she would return the boy's confiscated mobile phone "for a love bite", she said: "I'm joking with him. I think I'm funny. It was just banter. I don't want a love bite off a 15-year-old boy, I have a husband. He was covered in love bites, we'd all been making fun of him. I was just referring to it and laughing about it." Leah was then referred to the WhatsApp exchange concerning the "love song", which she said was Waterfalls by TLC. She added: "I tried to make him listen to it. It's about a son who keeps doing wrong things and choosing the wrong path." Leah accepted that she had met with the boy in breach of her bail conditions, but said of this: "I seen him as my son. He was devastated and he needed me. He begged to see me. He'd been beaten up. He was scared. He needed his mum, and he considered me to be his mum. I shouldn't have gone." Leah then appeared to become tearful as she said: "I just wanted everyone to see that I really seen [the boy ] as my son, and I wanted to have my opportunity to show everybody that I know I was unprofessional, I know I was dramatic and I know I was ridiculous, but I never incited any sexual activity with [the boy ]. I just really, really thought I was his mum. I thought I was helping him."
