Litter picker shouted ‘Wayne Couzens is coming for you’ and threatened to slit little girl’s throat in rage over rubbish
A LITTER picker shouted "Wayne Couzens is coming for you" and threatened to slit a young girl’s throat in a string of rants over rubbish.
Christopher Hollinworth, 37, threatened swimmers and families on rants over the amount of rubbish left at beauty spot Pickmere Lake in Knutsford, Cheshire, between August and October last year.
In one incident married dad-of-two Hollinworth told two swimmers he was “sick of menopausal women taking their clothes off in front of his house and was feeling homicidal towards people at the lake”.
Another time he approached a couple and their daughter, seven, getting back into their car after a swim.
Barclays software engineer Hollinworth told the dad: “I’ll get your kid and I’ll slice her throat” while making a slicing gesture to his own neck.
He added: “Off you go home now, leaving me to pick up everyone’s rubbish.”
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He then threw a For Sale sign at their car as they drove away, causing minor damage to the paintwork.
He also yelled "Wayne Couzens is going to get you - you're next" in one of the rants.
And he asked the officers who arrested him: “None of you are Wayne Couzens are you?”
Wayne Couzens kidnapped and murdered marketing exec Sarah Everard, 33, in March 2021.
He used his status as a serving Metropolitan Police officer to lure her into his car and later burned her body in woods near Ashford, Kent.
Hollinworth admitted criminal damage and three public order offences.
He got a year's restraining order, was fined £1,350 and told to pay £700 in compensation.
Sentencing, magistrates panel chairwoman Gillian Beckett said: "All three witnesses would have been scared to death in relation to these incidents.
"It was upsetting and terrifying to them."
'HE TURNED MY LIFE UPSIDE DOWN'
A victim told Warrington magistrates court: “I went from being a confident individual to someone who is scared to go out.
“He turned my life upside down. It’s had a major impact on me.”
Another swimmer said she had “never experienced fear like this before” and no longer goes outdoor swimming, adding: “He took away my freedom.”
Hollinworth suffers from several mental health conditions and has since been diagnosed with autism.
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Rebecca Penfold, defending, said: “He didn’t understand why it was that he was behaving in this way.
“With this diagnosis, he can move forward. This is a man who is now changed.”
