The first half of January will soon be here and despite it being a quiet start to the New Year for some, the region's courts were very much still busy handing out prison sentences.
People have been locked up for all manner of criminal offences and with M.E.N. reporters were there to cover the most serious.
There was the case of a child that asked a gunman who broke into his family home 'are you going to kill my daddy?' before his father was kidnapped, attacked and 'tortured'.
Then there was the woman that has been jailed over a drunken four-hour rampage on a holiday jet after she asked male passengers to join her in the 'mile high club'.
There was also the member of a notorious gang of schoolboy robbers locked up for stabbing a 13-year-old boy in Piccadilly Gardens.
The biggest case, however, was that of Reynhard Sinaga - the Manchester student who raped up to 200 men who were out clubbing in the city.
After four trials spanning the course of 18 months, Sinaga has now been exposed as Britain's worst rapist and jailed for life.
Here is a run-down of the criminals jailed since the start of the month:
'What do you mean no? You're in my house'...teen criminal's sickening words to girl, 14, before launching himself at her in horrific rape
A teenager has been locked up for raping a girl of 14 at a house party while his family was away.
The youth was 15 when he attacked the girl at his home in Salford in March 2018.
A jury unanimously convicted him of rape in November following a trial and a judge handed the youth, now 17, a two-year detention and training order.
The court heard the girl had gone out with a school friend, both 14 at the time, and text messages between the pair indicated they wanted to spend the night at a 'free house' where there were no parents.
Messages on the victim's phone also suggested the pair were planning on getting some ecstasy but the girl told the trial they never obtained any drugs.
She said she believed her drink had been spiked towards the end of one party they went to and afterwards the friends were looking for another party to go to.
'That's the guy who touched me up'... flasher who stalked 14-year-old girl is jailed after being caught by her parents
A flasher who molested a 14-year-old girl in a terrifying street attack whilst he was on bail for exposing himself to two women joggers has been jailed for a year.
Sam Orchard, 22, stalked the teenager for several minutes before creeping up behind her and grabbing her.
The terrified girl alerted her mother then fled to a nearby pub in tears where she was seen pointing at Orchard who was loitering outside saying: ''That’s that guy down there who touched me up”.
He was arrested after police arrived at the scene, in Middleton, to find an injured Orchard on the ground with the victim's parents stood around him. It is not known how he came by his injuries.
Police who investigated the attack, at around 11am on October 25, 2018, discovered Orchard of Thurnby Lodge, Leicester had been on bail after he flashed at two women been jogging in the city's Bradgate Park the previous May.
At Minshull Street Crown Court, Manchester, the father-to-be admitted sexual assault and indecent exposure and was also ordered to abide by a Sexual Harm Prevention Order and sign the Sex Offender Register for ten years.
'Are you going to kill my daddy?' terrified child asked gunman before gang kidnapped his father
A child asked a gunman who broke into his family home 'are you going to kill my daddy?' before his father was kidnapped, attacked and 'tortured'.
The dad-of-two was only released more than 25 hours later after a ransom of £34,000 was paid.
Paris Bostock, 26; Blake Evers, 24; and Darren Berkeley, 43, and have been jailed for their roles in the shocking incident.
Tammy O'Sullivan, 41, will be sentenced later this week and Elliott Cummings, 29, will be sentenced later this month.
It is thought the victim, who worked in car sales, was targeted because it was believed he had money at his home.
The man was with his partner and two sons at their home in Heaton Moor, Stockport, when four masked men - one armed with a gun - smashed in through a window.
Prosecutors said Berkeley - 'by far the oldest' of the gang, a father-of-four who is Bostock's stepfather - was involved in negotiations for the payment of the ransom and the man's release.
He denied this, with his lawyers claiming during his earlier trial that he was in fact a drug dealer and that 'his acknowledged illegal drugs trade must necessarily involve the use of several mobile telephones which are frequently changed'.
However Berkeley, of no fixed address, was convicted, with the judge saying the verdict proved he 'was a blackmailer, and moreover, the court is entitled to conclude, a blackmailer who played a significant role'.
Evers and Cummings were said to have been involved in the kidnapping and his detention.
All four other defendants other than Berkely pleaded guilty.
Bostock, of Chassen Road, Urmston; Evers, of Thornley Lane South, Stockport; and Cummings, of Mull Avenue, Longsight, admitted false imprisonment.
O'Sullivan, of Earlswood Mead, Pudsey, Leeds, admitted assisting an offender.
Evers was jailed for a total of 19 years at Manchester Crown Court on Tuesday, which also included sentences from his involvement in a second kidnapping in Fallowfield a month later.
Berkeley was jailed for 12 years and Bostock was handed a nine year jail term.
Woman who tried to get strangers to 'join the mile high club' in drunken rampage on Etihad jet
A woman has been jailed over a drunken four-hour rampage on a holiday jet after she asked male passengers to join her in the ''mile high club'' as the plane cruised at 30,000 feet.
Demi Burton, 20, had already shocked two men by making crude comments about them having mid air sex during an eight hour flight whilst she was intoxicated on red wine.
But when she was refused any more alcohol, Burton, from Carrington, Trafford, shouted: ''You may as well just land the plane now then!'’ before angrily raising her fists at cabin crew and going berserk as 259 passengers looked on.
Staff on the Etihad flight from Abu Dhabi to Manchester tried to calm Burton down only for her to headbutt, maul and and kick out at them during a violent struggle.
It took six crew members and passengers to restrain her and she was arrested when the plane touched down after a nightmare 4,500 mile journey.
A consultant anaesthetist travelling on the flight who was bitten on the elbow and headbutted as he helped restrain Burton claimed it was worse than working in A&E.
At Minshull Street Crown Court, Manchester, she was jailed for six months after she admitted being drunk on an aircraft and five charges of assault. The incident began on May 9 shortly after flight EY21 had taken off from the United Arab Emirates.
'The Spice tram to Chadderton': How dealers used Metrolink to peddle drugs and misery
Two drug dealers who used Metrolink to peddle Spice across the region have been jailed.
Martin Alan Davies, 29, and Adam Miller, 33, took advantage of Manchester city centre's homeless population to make thousands of pounds from dealing.
The pair moved into the patch after a series of successful prosecutions under Operation Gigg, the police unit set up to tackle Spice dealing, took out several prominent players.
Davies, known by his first name to many drug users in the city centre, began selling Spice at South Chadderton tram stop around 2017.
The Manchester Evening News understands groups of as many as fifteen or twenty homeless drug users would then get the tram from the city centre to South Chadderton to pick up Spice.
Davies and Miller, formerly of Whiteley Street, Chadderton, were charged and later pleaded guilty to offences including Possession of Spice With Intent to Supply, Possession of Cannabis and Possession of a Bladed Article.
They were sentenced to 32 months and 39 months in prison respectively.
'Lost Boys' gang member, 13, stabbed child in the back in Piccadilly Gardens over £5
A member of a notorious gang of schoolboy robbers has been locked up for stabbing a 13-year-old boy in Piccadilly Gardens.
The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, knifed the victim in the back because he refused to hand over just £5.
Manchester Crown Court heard the robber demanded the cash because he wanted to join a group of friends going to the cinema.
It was part of a string of knife-point robberies the boy carried out as part of the Urbis Group, a gang of boys mostly aged 13 and 14-years-old who took over Manchester city centre during the summer of 2018.
In a special report published last year , the Manchester Evening News described the gang as 'The Lost Boys of Manchester'.
During a series of court cases, it emerged the 16-strong group met after being excluded from school and into the Pupil Referral Unit (PRU) system.
Many were required to attend only a few hours of school a week, and instead began meeting up in the city centre to carry out increasingly violent robberies.
The gang was finally nailed when Greater Manchester Police detectives in Operation Valiant - the anti-robbery unit - launched a painstaking investigation that resulted in more than 100 charges.
Their work tackling the gang, and others operating in the city centre, continues and today one of the main players in the 'Lost Boys' group was sentenced to a year in youth custody.
Now aged 14, he was just 13-years-old when he stabbed another young boy in a shocking and unprovoked attack in November 2018.
The boy was sentenced to a 12-month Detention and Training Order.
Forest Bank lag who'd had a 'difficult day' headbutted prison officer and left him with a broken nose
A prison officer left covered in blood after an angry lag headbutted him had a 'premonition' that he was going to be attacked, a court heard.
Geoffrey Hampshire, 46, assaulted the officer at Forest Bank prison in Salford after having a 'difficult day'.
The officer was left with a broken nose and suffered 'copious blood loss'.
The attack led him to undergo a 'dramatic loss of confidence'.
Sentencing Hampshire to an additional six months in jail after he pleaded guilty to unlawful wounding, Judge Alan Conrad QC told him: "You headbutted a prison officer who had done nothing to warrant what you did.
"He was a public servant doing his job in difficult circumstances."
Pervert woman befriended 'vulnerable' girl, 13, before sexually abusing her for weeks...the teenager ended up trying to take her own life
A woman who sexually abused a 13-year-old girl has now been jailed.
Martine Brayshaw was 22 when she started to befriend the "vulnerable" teenager, who had a torrid home life.
What began as a friendship soon turned into sexual abuse over a two month period, though, and was only uncovered when the schoolgirl, who cannot be named, was confronted by her mother.
Minshull Street Crown Court heard the girl's relationship with Brayshaw "contributed" to the youngster trying to take her own life. After being treated in hospital, she told police of the abuse.
Later, Brayshaw of Coldhurst, Oldham, turned up at the girl's home, threw a burning rag at the property and screamed abuse at the girl and her mother, threatening to ‘get people round’.
Brayshaw, now 24, was jailed for 30 months after she was convicted of seven charges of sexual activity with a child and two offences of witness intimidation.
Cocaine-fuelled thug stabbed love rival three times in the head with machete after being sent pictures of him kissing his ex
A thug who repeatedly stabbed a love rival in the head with a machete has been jailed for ten years.
Liam Morgan, 31, flew into a rage after he was sent pictures via Facebook Messenger of his ex-girlfriend kissing the victim, Manchester Crown Court heard.
Fuelled by cocaine and booze, Morgan stormed round to his ex-girlfriend's address in Harpurhey armed with a 'machete-type' weapon, the court was told.
When she answered the door, Morgan pushed her out of the way and immediately went to attack her new partner.
He launched himself at the victim, slashing him on the wrist, and three times around the head when he attempted to flee into the kitchen, the court heard.
Morgan's three children with his ex-partner were asleep in the home at the time.
Morgan was arrested at the scene last August and charged with section 18 wounding with intent.
He pleaded guilty and Judge Nicholls sentenced Morgan to ten years in prison.
Man who smashed pint glass into the side of pub customer's face jailed for five years
A man who smashed a pint glass into the side of man's face has been jailed for five years.
The victim was with a group of friends in The Welcome Inn, on Bury Old Road, Whitefield, when he asked attacker Alexander Sinclair, 28, to move and an argument started.
Sinclair, of Langley Hall Road, Prestwich, tried to punch the victim with his left hand and then smashed a pint glass into the side of his face with his right hand.
The victim suffered from head and face injuries during the incident in in December 2018, which required hospital treatment.
Sinclair was later arrested and taken into police custody for interview.
He denied the offence, but following a trial a jury found him guilty of section 18 assault.
During a hearing at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court Sinclair was sentenced to five years in prison.
Psychopath Manchester student raped hundreds of men in his city centre flat
A Manchester student who raped up to 200 men who were out clubbing in the city has been exposed as Britain’s worst rapist and jailed for life.
Reynhard Sinaga lured drunk men back to his city centre apartment at Montana House, Princess Street, before poisoning them with GHB, raping them and filming them while they were ‘comatose’, a series of Manchester Crown Court trials has heard.
The 36-year-old - described as a ‘psychopath’ by police - has now been convicted of raping 44 men, aged 17 to 36, over two-and-a-half years.
He was also found guilty of sexually assaulting an additional four victims.
The extraordinary case can only be reported now - after four trials, spanning the course of 18 months, concluded with guilty verdicts at Manchester Crown Court.
Detectives believe the true number of victims is at least 195, based on the hundreds of hours of video footage the Indonesia national took of the attacks.
Dozens of men have yet to be identified and are unlikely to know they were raped because of the memory-wiping effect of the drug Sinaga used to knock out his victims.
It makes the PhD student, who studied at Manchester and Leeds universities, the most prolific rapist in British judicial history - worse even than the notorious ‘black cab rapist’ John Worboys.
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