Assault charges against former Hartlepool mayor are dismissed

Councillor Stephen Akers-Belcher, who represents the Socialist Labour Party on Hartlepool Borough Council, was due to stand trial on two counts of assault by beating on Friday, October 16, at Peterlee Magistrates’ Court.

But the charges against both Cllr Akers-Belcher and Lewis Akers, who was alleged to have attacked the same men, were dismissed by the court after no prosecution witnesses turned up.

A separate accusation that Mr Akers, 28, of Conway Walk, Hartlepool, also assaulted a female on the same date was also thrown out after the bench rejected a plea by the Crown Prosecution Service for the trial to be adjourned.

Addressing the court about efforts to contact two of the four witnesses, Sarah O’Neill, prosecuting, said: “Messages have been left on their mobiles and officers have attended their address but there has been no response whatsoever.”

Neil Taylor, representing both defendants, opposed an application by the CPS for the case to be adjourned so that the police could check if the witnesses had moved.

He said it was “not in the interests of justice” for a further delay and added: “People do not change their mobile phones when they change their address. They are told by the police at the start of the case what is required.

"They have voted with their feet. They have not come.”

Both Cllr Akers-Belcher, 41, of Westbrooke Avenue, Hartlepool, who represents the council’s Manor House ward and was the town’s ceremonial mayor in 2014-15, and Mr Akers were accused of carrying out the attacks in Hartlepool on November 3 last year.

They denied the charges earlier this year when they appeared before Teesside Magistrates’ Court.

Mr Akers still faces one count of causing criminal damage to a police cell at Middlesbrough, also on November 3 last year, and was bailed to appear at Teesside Magistrates’ Court, in Middlesbrough, on Friday, November 6.

Cllr Akers-Belcher, a former Labour representative on the borough council before he resigned in 2019 after he was suspended by the party over allegations that he delivered leaflets for another party’s candidate, declined to comment when contacted by the Mail after Friday’s case.

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