Andrew Dawson, on License for a 1981 Murder, Gets a Whole-Life Term for Killing Two Derby Neighbors
Dawson changed his pleas to guilty of murder on the first day of his trial. The judge said "life will mean life" for the 2010 killings of two men in Chaddesden.
Published
Andrew Dawson was on license for a 1981 murder when he killed two neighbors in Derby in July 2010. On July 18, 2011, a judge ordered that he never be released.
Dawson, 48, pleaded guilty to murdering John David Matthews, 66, and Paul Hancock, 58, on the first day of his trial at Nottingham Crown Court. He had admitted killing both men at the flats on Waterford Drive in Chaddesden, where he had moved in weeks earlier, but had denied murder on the grounds of diminished responsibility. Matthews was found dead in his flat on July 25, 2010, and Hancock was found dead in the same building five days later. Sentencing Dawson to a whole-life term, Mrs. Justice Dobbs said "life will mean life" and told him, "These were pre-meditated and planned, brutal killings."
Dawson had been given a life sentence in 1982 after admitting the murder of Henry Walsh, a 91-year-old shopkeeper in Ormskirk, Lancashire. He was arrested in Whitehaven, Cumbria, armed with seven kitchen knives. In his flat, police found a notebook bearing the impression of a letter, said to have been written by Dawson, that confessed to one of the killings and was signed "Yours, the Angel of Mercy." Det. Insp. Paul Callum said Dawson had shown no remorse. Denise White of Derbyshire Probation said there had been nothing in all the years to indicate that he was planning to kill again.
BBC News said the 1981 victim was killed in his flat in Ormskirk, while the Liverpool Echo reported that Dawson killed him after raiding his shop.
Sources
- Neighbour killer Andrew Dawson given whole life term, BBC News
- Released to kill again: the Ormskirk murderer who idolised Cumbrian gunman Derrick Bird, Liverpool Echo, John Siddle