Bailed to kill a loving father
17th January 2008
The Daily Mail
www.dailymail.co.uk
Until Britain changes - we will NEVER have justice, says wife of father kicked to death by thugs. The widow of a man kicked to death outside his home has demanded action to stop yobs terrorising the streets. Garry Newlove's wife Helen told how her family had been destroyed weeks after the couple's 21st wedding anniversary.

The mother of three said her husband would be alive today if the Government and police had done more to curb the behaviour of drunken vandal gangs.

Mrs Newlove read out her moving statement after it was revealed that the ringleader of the gang convicted of kicking her 47-year-old husband to death had been released from cells only hours before the murder and should not have been in the town of Warrington, Cheshire.

Adam Swellings, 19, who has at least 11 previous convictions, including assault, battery and restraining order breaches, had been arrested a week earlier for punching a man who caught the gang damaging his car. He was remanded in custody for a week and faced magistrates on the morning of Mr Newlove's murder, pleading guilty to battery and common assault.

But despite protests by the Crown Prosecution Service, JPs allowed him bail on condition he stayed away from the streets of Warrington. Soon after the court hearing Swellhead, as he was known, gathered together other members of his gang to celebrate his release and was back drinking, smoking cannabis and causing trouble in Warrington.

Hours later Mr Newlove, a salesman, was being cradled by his 45-year-old wife and daughters, Amy, 12, Danielle, 15, and Zoe, 18, as he lay dying outside their home. Two days later, they would be forced to take the agonising decision to turn off his life-support machine.

Swellings, who had downed nine pints of lager on the night of the attack, and two other gang members - Stephen Sorton, 17, and Jordan Cunliffe, 16 - are all facing life imprisonment after being convicted yesterday of Mr Newlove's murder. Two other youths, aged 17 and 15, were acquitted of the same charge.

Warrington North MP Helen Jones today demanded an inquiry into why Swellings was bailed hours before he took part in the murder of Newlove. Ms Jones said she would be writing to the Attorney General to establish why Swellings, 19, was released from jail. She said: "We have laws for keeping people like that from committing further crimes and they weren't enforced."

Following yesterday's verdicts, at a packed and emotional hearing at Chester Crown Court, Mrs Newlove broke down and sobbed for 15 minutes. She said she was "utterly disgusted" that Swellings had been released on bail to kill her husband and was disappointed that two of his alleged attackers had been cleared of murder. We have three guilty verdicts but as far as I'm concerned it was a joint enterprise," she said. "The justice system does not do enough to protect decent hard-working people." She said life should mean life, but the defendants would still be younger than her husband when they are released.

The court heard that Mr Newlove died after having his head kicked "like a football" when he confronted a mob of youths after they vandalised his wife's car on the evening of August 10 last year.

Swellings threw the first punch, before Mr Newlove was knocked to the ground. The gang laughed as they repeatedly punched and kicked him in the face, before leaving him for dead. Sorton, who has a previous conviction for assault, kicked Mr Newlove, who survived stomach cancer 13 years earlier, so fiercely that his training shoe was later recovered from underneath the victim.

As Mr Newlove lay dying in his hospital bed, his daughter Amy penned a heartbreaking letter begging "the best dad in the world" to pull through.

The jury were told that in the months before the attack, the residents of Station Road North, in the suburb of Fearnhead had met with police and pleaded with them to do something about the antisocial behaviour which was plaguing their lives.

On one occasion, Mrs Newlove recalled a neighbour dialling 999 only to be told his call was 15th in line to be answered. When police did attend the youths usually ran away or hid down alleyways until the officers had gone. In the ten days before Mr Newlove's murder, seven householders were attacked - four on the night of the killing.

Swellings and Sorton's mobile phones were found by police to contain sickening video clips of gratuitous violence, including one particularly disturbing image of a man's head being smashed against the edge of a kerb as he lay on the pavement.

In a moving statement to police, read out in court, Mrs Newlove also described the moment when she turned off the life-support machine keeping her brain-damaged husband alive.

"I held on to Garry and hugged him," she said. "I could hear the ventilator machine stop, I went to give him a kiss and his head moved but there was no life. I didn't want to let him go and just held on to him as long as I could."

The jury of six men and six women took nearly ten days - more than 55 hours - to reach verdicts on all five defendants. Sorton, from Warrington, was found guilty unanimously, Swellings, of Crewe, was convicted on a 10-2 majority and Cunliffe, formerly of Warrington, by 11-1. They will be sentenced later.

Since Mr Newlove's death, neighbours say new and improved street lighting has been installed and schemes to keep youths from the streets have been launched, with mixed results.

Mrs Newlove and her daughters have never returned to the house and it is now up for sale. Garry Shewan, assistant chief constable of Cheshire, said: "I think society is beginning to see the murder of Mr Newlove as a tipping point where we have all got to take action against anti-social behaviour."

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