BRUTAL KILLER JAILED

David George Towers, 51, was ordered to serve a minimum of 18 years in jail after Winchester Crown Court heard how he brutally murdered pensioner Irene Hawkes after downing at least nine pints of beer earlier in the day.

Sentencing Towers the Honourable Mrs Justice Sharp told him: “This was a cowardly and brutal crime against a defenceless, vulnerable 82-year-old lady who had lived a respectable life and showed you considerable kindness.

“You have shown no remorse at any stage but instead tried to blame your mentally ill wife. All decent people will be revolted by your crime.”

As Towers was led away he had angry exchanges with people sitting in the public gallery.

During the trial the jury at Winchester Crown Court heard how Mrs Hawkes was left with a broken nose, jaw and eye socket and fractures to her sternum and seven ribs following the attack.

Mrs Hawkes took several days to die on the kitchen floor of her home in Wakely Road, Kinson the jury heard.

Following the attack Towers fled the house and went into hiding.

Towers of no fixed abode, was eventually found by police hiding in a friend’s garden shed in Upton Heath.

After his arrest he blamed his wife Mrs Hawkes’ daughter Sylvia for the murder.

Towers told police that he had left the house because Mrs Hawkes told him that Sylvia was “coming with the boyfriend and his mates to sort him”.

On the day of the murder Towers joined Mrs Hawkes on errands in Winton and they visited several pubs including the Queens Park Hotel in Holdenhurst Road where they celebrated Towers’ betting win.

They were later heard quarrelling in a taxi on the way home. Towers ordered a takeaway curry that evening but there was no reply when it was delivered just after 8pm.

Prosecutor Christopher Parker said: “Between ordering the curry and its delivery this man had set about his mother-in-law in her kitchen.”

Speaking afterwards DS Pete Yeates said: “There is no doubt that the alcohol consumed that day by David Towers played a significant part in the attack.”

And chief crown prosecutor for CPS Dorset Kate Brown said: “Mrs Hawkes was subjected to a sustained assault at the hands of David Towers.

“She was an elderly woman with no chance of defending herself against a man thirty years her junior.”

A joint statement from Mrs Hawkes’ family said they were “very happy” with the sentence.

It added: “We feel that after a fair trial justice has been done. This mind-numbing process has taken a very dangerous man off the streets making Bournemouth a safer place to be.”

Gentle widow was left to die

IRENE Hawkes was a gentle widow. Her neighbours described her as sprightly and friendly.

And she remained protective of her daughter Sylvia, despite suffering years of physical abuse at her hands.

But by April last year the 82-year-old from West Howe in Bournemouth had become frail and worn down, confused and frightened.

She wanted protection from Sylvia’s violence and let her former son-in-law David Towers live at her home in Wakely Road.

But she didn’t realise the fear she also had of him, which she had confided in to her GP Dr Hutchings, was all too justified.

Towers, 51, came across as a man who exploited vulnerable women and became a bully when drunk.

He had married Mrs Hawke’s daughter, Sylvia, in 1996.

She was described in court as an alcoholic with a mental disorder and the relationship was dysfunctional, violent and volatile.

They married, divorced, remarried, and then re-divorced.

Neighbours saw the couple drunkenly arguing in the street numerous times. Towers admitted punching Sylvia eight or nine times in the mouth in “self-defence”.

Two of their children have been adopted and two are in foster care.

By April, Sylvia was barred from her mother’s home and was living in Boscombe.

Towers, who had no home of his own, was living with Mrs Hawkes and claiming he was helping her out, which he probably was to an extent while sober.

However he was also violent to Mrs Hawkes in the months before he killed her. The court heard he swung her around and bruised her forehead in December 2007.

On the day of the murder, April 28, Towers had at least 9-10 pints and took Mrs Hawkes out after a win at the bookies.

A cab driver heard them “bickering” on the way home – perhaps the start of an argument that was to cost her life.

Her body was found eight days later.

She had suffered a broken nose, jaw and eye socket and fractures to her sternum and seven ribs, and took several days to bleed to death on the kitchen floor.

Towers didn’t call the emergency services – he went on the run to his ex-partner Lucy Sharpe’s house in Alder Hills.

She was fed a sob story about getting out of prison and knew nothing of the murder.

She recalled how Towers turned up and washed his trainers soon after the attack, and how his furtive behaviour included hiding in her shed when a visitor called.

And she cried when describing how he had kicked and punched her following a drinking session when she dared ask him to leave after a week.

He spent two more days hiding in the Manchester Hotel under a false name and was arrested hiding in a shed at a friend’s house in Upton, Poole.

When the case came to trial, Towers chose to take the stand but made a poor impression.

His days sounded like a dreary circuit of pubs and betting shops, with regular stops to buy cigarettes.

He was unemployed and was known in nearby Dave’s Chippy for trying to scrounge money.

On the day of the murder, he’d managed to borrow £40 from Mrs Hawkes.

The Leeds United fan took the stand and promised to tell: “the whole truth and nowt but the truth”.

But the prosecution branded his defence a “tissue of lies”.

He claimed Sylvia, and her new boyfriend had come with a gang and killed Mrs Hawkes.

He said they had come round for him in a revenge attack because he had assaulted the new boyfriend.

But there was never any threat and he showed no fear there would be.

Towers twice went for a drink in a pub frequented by Sylvia, the Queens Park Hotel, on the day she was supposedly organising the attack.

When asked how he behaved when drunk, he refused to answer then tried to invoke “the Fifth Amendment”.

Christopher Parker QC, prosecuting replied: “There is no Fifth Amendment. You chose to give evidence. You become angry and aggressive in drink.”

Towers weakly replied: “Yes, but I have never been violent to Irene.”

There was never a clear motive for his violence but a row over money may have provoked the attack.

One of Mrs Hawkes’s credit cards had gone missing, money had been taken from her account, and debts, including a bill for home help, were mounting.

Towers had blamed Sylvia for the thefts, though he was the person with closest access to Mrs Hawkes.

Mrs Hawkes also had £80 in cash in the hours before the murder, and this went missing.

If Mrs Hawkes suspected he had stolen from her, perhaps he turned his drunken aggression on her.

But only he knows the truth.