Kent is a safe county, on the whole, but as regular readers will testify there are plenty of ne'er-do-wells who seek to make a gain at other's expense.

So, as we approach the end of another year, we take a look back at who found themselves in court over 2022 - picking one case from each month - and highlighting some of the odder, or more inept, criminal cases which saw justice served.

No-one likes trouble with their neighbours - but Carol-Ann Cousins pushed things too far.

When the 57-year-old appeared at Maidstone Crown Court in January she was dubbed "the neighbour from hell" after issuing daily threats and abuse to those living near her home in St Benedict Road, Snodland.

Cousins, an alcoholic, regularly subjected those living nearby to a string of drunken outbursts.

One neighbour said it had been an "absolute horrible experience" and that Cousins had been "knocking on our doors all the time, shouting and screaming, trying to get in".

The judge jailed her for a year and banned her from walking past her victim's home.

They say making a quiet getaway is key to pulling off a crime. Not so for 21-year-old Tommie Lloyd.

After pulling on a balaclava and gloves, he used a screwdriver to break into a property in Northfleet.

But after pinching the keys to an Audi A5 parked on the driveway, in his haste to escape, he reversed into a wall - the noise of which alerted the sleeping occupants who swiftly called the police.

Officers then gave chase, and a police helicopter spotted him driving, dangerously, across the Dartford Crossing and into Essex. By the time he parked the car in Ilford, police and a dog unit hunted him down.

Appearing in Maidstone Crown Court in February, Lloyd, who lives in Dagenham, admitted the offences and was jailed for two years and four months. He was also disqualified from driving for four years and two months.

When Gary Parkes and Liam Byrom decided to ram-raid a hair salon in Dartford, it's fair to say they may not have thought it through.

Because Parkes, 32, from Woolwich, was wearing a GPS ankle tag, part of his release from prison on a separate charge. And it provided the proof police needed to pinpoint his location at the time of the crime.

Parkes and Byrom, 25, of no fixed address, used a moped to smash through the doors of the salon in Market Street where they escaped with hairdryers, curlers, straighteners and other beauty products worth £3,000.

The crime was captured on CCTV and although both wore crash helmets, the ankle tag provided cops with the breakthrough they needed.

Both admitted their guilt when they appeared in March at Maidstone Crown Court and got 22-month jail terms each.

In April, 43-year-old Roy Sinclair from Sydenham found himself hauled before a judge at Maidstone Crown Court. His crime? Holding up a bank. His big mistake? Stealing a wad of discontinued £20 notes.

He had entered a branch of Lloyds in Dartford before threatening a member of staff with a knife.

Threatening to kill them if they set off an alarm, he then grabbed the useless banknotes before fleeing.

Two days later, he called the police and confessed to his crime. He was arrested within 10 minutes of making the call.

He was jailed for five years and four months and will be the subject of a two-year extended licence when he is eventually released from prison.

In for a penny, in for a pound, could have been the motto of a gang who conspired to supply more than £12million of counterfeit banknotes.

As part of the investigation which led to the single largest face-value seizure of fake currency in UK history - uncovered following a raid on an industrial unit in Beckenham - a 61-year-old from Kent was identified as part of the gang .

Andrew Ainsworth, from Old Dartford Road, Farningham, was the fourth gang member to be jailed for their role in the conspiracy.

An investigation into the group’s activities began in January 2019, around the same time the Bank of England identified a new counterfeit paper £20 note entering general circulation.

Appearing at Woolwich Crown Court in May, he was found guilty and sentenced to five-and-a-half years behind bars. Three other members of the same criminal network were sentenced to a combined total of 22-and-a-half years in January 2021, having admitted to their involvement in the conspiracy.

When Uber Eats delivery driver Hamdi Braiek, 34, entered Grill 91 in Maidstone, he complained that a female member of staff "had her boobs out" which offended him. He said it was "unprofessional."

When he then walked into Brenchley Gardens with the restaurant owner moments later, he rugby tackled his victim to the ground and savagely beat him - stamping on his head when he was already unconscious.

He had earlier that day attacked a transgender couple walking in the street asking if what they were doing was in line with their religious beliefs.

He swung punches at both, although neither were seriously hurt.

He was found guilty in June at Maidstone Crown Court of grievous bodily harm and sentenced to eight years and three months behind bars.

We've all pinched the occasional paper clip from an employer...maybe even a Biro or two. But Benjamin Cullen, 43, of Herne Bay took things to the extreme.

The father-of-two, who had been employed by Blaze Signs in Broadstairs, tricked his employer out of £200,000.

In addition to using the firm's finances to pay large sums to companies which he owned, he also used his boss' credit cards to make more than 500 purchases from Amazon as part of the scam. Items included a gazebo, video games and even a nose wax kit.

But he came unstuck after skimming £29,000 from Mr Knight’s AmEx card. Cullen didn’t use reference numbers while making fraudulent payments to himself, so the bank auto-filled the records with his mobile phone number.

The fraudster was jailed for four years and nine months in July at Canterbury Crown Court after pleading guilty to four counts of fraud by abuse of position.

In August, a 50-year-old from Gravesend, found himself being sent to jail at Snaresbrook Crown Court.

Brett Mullan, from Wellington Street, had pretended a collapsible walking stick, concealed in a plastic bag, was a shotgun and used it to threaten a number of bookmakers into handing over cash.

The Met Police's Flying Squad were investigating a series of armed robberies in Crayford, Lee, Norwood and Sutton.

A total of £2,780 was stolen over the course of the robberies.

He was caught out after being captured on CCTV using trains to get to and from his crimes. When his home was searched the walking stick was found.

He pleaded guilty to five counts of robbery and five counts of being in possession of an imitation firearm at an earlier hearing. Appearing at crown court, he was put behind bars for ten years.

Naturist Robert Jenner has never quite got the hang of keeping his kit on being key to keeping out of jail.

But in September, the 49-year-old former soldier - once dubbed the 'naked carpenter' - was back at Maidstone Crown Court after collecting his phone at Maidstone police station wearing see-through trousers.

He was convicted of breaching a Criminal Behaviour Order just hours after being released from jail.

The naturist, formerly of Bingley Close, Snodland, had claimed during his trial at Maidstone Crown Court that he was allowed to go commando because he is protected under the Human Rights Act. But the judge said the order, imposed on March 14, 2019, had been the result of persistent criminal behaviour and a jury took minutes to see through the delivery driver's defence and convicted him.

The judge passed a one-year jail sentence, telling him that he had showed "a contempt for the court and the law". And, one assumes, a lack of underwear.

When Jake Finn, a 22-year-old from Hythe, decided to burgle a café in Hastings, he made one crucial error.

Having broken in and stolen around £300 from the till and tip box, he put a carton of milk he had carried inside by the till. And he left it there.

Police, upon viewing the café's CCTV of the incident then tested the carton and found a DNA match for Finn, of Dymchurch Road.

He was arrested and charged with burglary other than dwelling with intent to steal and also charged with two counts of theft in relation to alcohol being stolen from a supermarket in Peasmarsh.

Appearing before Brighton Magistrates’ Court in October, he was convicted of all three offences and jailed for 26 weeks for the burglary, and one week for each shoplifting offence to run concurrently. He was also ordered to pay £300 in compensation.

Don't sleep on the job is a well-worn phrase. But for Miroslav Jano it was to be his undoing.

The 34-year-old from Dover appeared at Canterbury Crown Court in November for his rude awakening; a jail sentence.

The prolific burglar was convicted in connection with a string of offences around the town.

But his undoing came when police attended reports of a break-in at a flat in Durham Close and found him asleep in a communal area surrounded by stolen goods.

A police probe resulted in him pleading guilty to two counts of burglary and two of theft.
A further three offences were ordered by the court to lie on file. He was sentenced to three years behind bars.

And finally, we come to December and how a drugs trafficker came unstuck courtesy of a photograph of his pet dog.

Danny Brown, from Bromley, was working with co-conspirator Stefan Baldauf on a plot to send 448 kilos of MDMA worth £45 million to Australia in a digger.

But then he decided to share a picture of his pooch Bob to Baldauf on the encrypted communications platform EncroChat, using the handle "throwthedice". The only problem was that visible in the image was his partner's phone number on the dog's identity tag.

National Crime Agency investigators were able to zoom in on the image to see the phone number and they used it, among other tactics, in an investigation to prove Brown was part of the conspiracy.

The crooks also managed to send pictures which accidentally showed their reflections.

Convicted, along with others involved in the crime at Kingston Crown Court, Brown was jailed for 26 years.