A Leeds property developer who planted listening devices and a hidden camera in a woman’s home and car and tried to hire a private investigator to follow her while his wife was pregnant has been handed a suspended prison sentence and a restraining order.
Lewis Minnock, 37, admitted controlling and coercive behaviour at Leeds Crown Court after prosecutors said he carried out a sustained campaign of surveillance and harassment against the woman he met through work. He was given a 16-month prison sentence suspended and a five-year order prohibiting contact with the victim.
Prosecutors told the court that Minnock began monitoring the woman in early 2023. In January 2023 he gave her what appeared to be a car phone charger that was, prosecutors said, a disguised listening device. Police later discovered additional devices in the woman’s vehicle and at her home, including a tracker and a disguised speaker with a hidden camera placed in a bedroom and in a living room. The devices were accessed more than 1,000 times between March and December 2023, the court heard.
By October 2023, some of the devices discovered in the vehicle were reportedly installed so poorly they created a safety risk. The court was told that when the woman travelled to Mexico to try to get away from Minnock, he made enquiries to hire a private investigator to follow her. A mutual friend later saw a receipt for £4,500 for the investigator, prosecutors said; Minnock told that friend he had asked for a refund because he could not afford the service.
The prosecution also said Minnock assaulted the woman on two occasions, including footage shown from a doorbell camera which showed him dragging her from her home. In a statement read to the court, the victim described enduring daily fear and said the surveillance had left her a "ghost of the person I used to be." She said Minnock "was living a double life" and described his behaviour as "not love — it was obsession, control and abuse."
Representing the Crown, prosecutor Jemima Stephenson-Finn outlined the scale of the monitoring and its effect on the woman’s life. Defence counsel Sallie Bennet-Jenkins told the court Minnock was "characterised by shame and remorse," saying he had been conflicted between his long-term relationship with his wife, who was expecting the couple's first child, and his relationship with the victim. The defence noted Minnock has a diagnosis of ADHD.
Minnock is a director of Yorkshire-based Sovereign Homes and also owns the Robiva Properties portfolio, the court heard. His wife, Sarah Minnock, who he met as a teenager, submitted a statement to the court describing him as a "determined, deep-down loyal person" and saying she chose not to leave him because she believed in the person she knew for more than two decades. The court was told she has since given birth to a son.
The judge imposed the suspended sentence after consideration of the defendant’s admissions, the impact on the victim and mitigation put forward by the defence. The five-year restraining order prevents Minnock from contacting the woman.
In a victim impact statement read to the court, the woman said: "There isn't a day that goes by where I don't feel the weight of what he did to me. The world I knew and the version of me that existed has now gone... Everything that made me feel safe has been stripped away. I live every single day with a deep fear that never leaves me."
The case was heard in Leeds Crown Court where sentencing guidelines for controlling and coercive behaviour were applied. Court records and submissions by both prosecution and defence set out a chronology of the surveillance spanning much of 2023 and describe the lasting psychological effect on the victim. The restraining order and suspended sentence will remain in force unless varied by a court.