30 years for killer who seized couple
Jul 9 2008 by Neil Mckay, The Journal
A MURDERER who fled the scene of his crime before kidnapping an elderly County Durham couple and subjecting them to a terrifying drink-fuelled drive to London is starting a 30-year-jail sentence today.
A jury at Liverpool Crown Court convicted Daniel Breaks, 48, of the murder of Simon Sutton and the kidnap of pensioners Mike and Joy Heaps, of Chester-le-Street, as he fled from justice.
Piano teacher Mrs Heaps, 62 – who declined to comment last night, but said she and her husband were preparing a statement today – told the jury she had feared for her life. The couple befriended Breaks when he was a Durham prisoner.
He tied their wrists and threatened to shoot the couple if they called police and to stab them if either raised the alarm.
Mrs Heaps gave evidence that Breaks had struck her 67-year-old husband, a former probation officer, on the head while wielding a large pair of dressmaking scissors.
He forced them at knifepoint into their car and took them to London, drinking brandy as he drove erratically at up to 125mph.
At one point he drove the wrong way down a sliproad while his passengers screamed at him. At the end of their ordeal, the couple were abandoned in their car in Southall, west London, and Breaks continued with his escape, leading to a nationwide hunt.
He was arrested four days later in Southampton.
Judge Peter Openshaw, whose father was murdered by a criminal he had locked up in 1968, yesterday passed the 30-year sentence on Breaks, who after the jury delivered its verdict threatened to escape and kill him.
The judge’s father, Judge William Openshaw, was stabbed to death by John Smith 13 years after sending him to borstal for stealing. In an echo of this case, Smith kidnapped a man at knifepoint and forced him to drive to Scotland. At the time of his father’s murder Peter Openshaw was a young barrister. Yesterday he ensured Breaks will not be eligible for parole until he is 78.
Hearing the threat from Breaks, Mr Justice Openshaw turned to the jury and said he doubted that would happen.
In April last year Breaks, who has more than 360 convictions, battered his sister Gwyneth Breaks’s boyfriend Simon Sutton, 40, to death.
He believed Mr Sutton had “grassed” him to police over a plot to blackmail the HSBC bank in Newcastle.
At the home Mr Sutton shared with Miss Breaks in Birkenhead, Merseyside, the killer battered him over several hours with a pool cue. Returning to the house once Mr Sutton, an alcoholic who weighed less than eight stone, had died, Breaks wrapped the body in bin bags after deciding against dismemberment and dumped it in an alley behind the house.
He then fled to the quiet terraced home of Mr and Mrs Heaps, who had befriended him when he served 14 years in Durham.
After the sentence Detective Superintendent Dave Kelly, of Merseyside Police, who led the investigation, said: “I am delighted with the verdict and with the sentence today and delighted for the families who have been severely impacted by the actions of one member.”
