By Jess Glass, Aug. 9, 2019 – Metro UK

A pensioner and her son have been convicted of murdering a man in a ‘brutal attack’ after pursuing a vendetta over the use of a footpath on their land.



The body of Gary Dean, 48, was found in a ditch in woods near Barnsley, South Yorkshire after a long running dispute with the Dawson family turned deadly.

Mr Dean’s wife, Caroline, told jurors at Sheffield Crown Court that the pair were terrorised in the run up to his murder.

The dispute focused on Mr Dean’s use of a public footpath he used to run on across the land owned by Scott Dawson, 41, and his mother Carol Dawson, 71.

Their house in Barnsley was daubed with offensive graffiti and Mrs Dean said they were regularly followed and threatened.

Jurors at Sheffield Crown Court found the Dawsons guilty of murder after 12 hours of deliberations. During a five-week long trial prosecutors said Mr Dean was found dead on September 6 last year.

He had been shot in the back with an air rifle as well as being beaten with the gun and branches in a ‘brutal attack’, they said. The mother and son had intended to return the same day and properly dispose of the body with a digger.

However, before they could cover their tracks, Mr Dean’s body was discovered by a walker alerted by the sound of a mobile phone ringing.

Jurors heard how the fight over the path had prompted the Dawsons to complain to police about Mr Dean, saying he was damaging their property. The pair even secured a restraining order against him and affixed a ‘stay away’ sign on a stile leading to the path.

Giving evidence, Mrs Dean said that her late husband was ‘quite autistic in his nature’ and was obsessive about running and trains.

Mrs Dean, the head at Hunningley Primary School, said he regularly visited an area called Bagger Wood and built scarecrows among the trees.

The couple’s problems began at the end of 2016 when she woke one morning to find the car and house covered in graffiti saying ‘paedo’ and ‘stay away Baz,’ in addition to other offensive comments.

Jurors were told about a series of incidents centring on accusations that Mr Dean was trying to entice children to go into the woods with him.

A letter was sent to Mrs Dean’s school claiming she was unsuitable to work with children due to her husband’s alleged interest in children.

Mrs Dean stressed a local authority safeguarding inquiry found nothing to back up the letter’s claims and said her husband had never been arrested for anything untoward relating to children.

She added that in June 2017, four youths smashed their way into their home at night with three attacking her husband, who was sleeping on downstairs and one going upstairs to assault her, leaving her with a broken nose. She said one of the attackers shouted: ‘Where are you, you dirty b*****d?’ during the unprovoked assault.

Scott and Carol Dawson, of Barnsley, were emotionless as the guilty verdicts were heard with Mrs Dean looking on the from public gallery above.

Judge Jeremy Richardson QC said to the jury: ‘Justice has, I’m sure, been done’.

The Dawsons will be sentenced on Monday.



Read more at Metro UK

