A man and woman have been found guilty of manslaughter in relation to the death of a man at his Weymouth home.
Hannah Jayne Rebecca Day, aged 29 and of Woodthorpe Road, Ashford, Surrey, and Aaron Kirk Brown, aged 39 and of Lennox Street, Weymouth, were convicted on Thursday 8 October 2020 following a trial at Winchester Crown Court. They were also found guilty of an offence of attempted robbery.
They will return to court to be sentenced on Friday 9 October 2020.
The charges related to the death of 75-year-old John Cornish at his home on The Esplanade on Friday 6 September 2019.
The jury was told how Day, a class A drug user, had befriended Mr Cornish and regularly manipulated him to obtain cash. It was estimated that over a period of several years she had obtained around £30,000 from him.
On the morning of Friday 6 September 2019 Day met Brown – another local drug user – in Weymouth. It is not believed they had previously had any contact with each other.
CCTV enquiries showed Mr Cornish leaving his home at around 2.40pm that afternoon before returning at around 3pm. At approximately 4.55pm the defendants arrived at his address.
Day and Brown wanted to get money from Mr Cornish to buy drugs and an altercation took place during which he sustained a number of injuries. These included a fracture to the hyoid bone in his neck, a bump to the head, bruising to the back and small puncture marks in a number of places that a pathologist said indicated he had been prodded with a knife or sharp instrument. Mr Cornish died at the scene.
A post-mortem examination carried out on Thursday 12 September 2019 indicated that, while the neck compression injuries sustained during the attack could have directly caused Mr Cornish’s death, it was equally possible that as a result of stress brought about by the assault, he had suffered a cardiac episode and died.
In subsequent interviews, Day and Brown both admitted being present at the time of Mr Cornish’s death and said that an altercation had taken place, but they each blamed each other for the assault.
With Mr Cornish dead at the address, Brown was seen on CCTV leaving at 5.26pm the premises to meet a dealer to buy drugs before going to Boots and Asda to buy Viagra.
While he was out Day made a number of phone calls from Mr Cornish’s landline to associates and Brown returned at around 7.30pm.
The pair then went out into Weymouth together and were seen on CCTV that night holding hands as they walked through the town.
They returned to Mr Cornish’s address at around 2.50am on Saturday 7 September and spent the rest of the night there together. Brown left at around 9.20am that morning and at 10am Day left the premises and raised the alarm with members of public outside, claiming she had just arrived to find Mr Cornish dead.
Officers and paramedics attended and there were no obvious signs of injury on Mr Cornish.
When the victim’s family attended the address later they noticed a number of items, including a cabinet that had been at the bottom of the stairs, were out of place. They also found pieces of the broken cabinet and broken crockery at the premises.
Further enquiries were carried out by police and a heart-shaped pendant that matched one Day had been seen wearing on CCTV earlier that day was found amongst the broken crockery. A hoover at the premises also had pieces of crockery in the bag and Brown’s fingerprints were recovered from it.
After she was arrested in connection with the death, Day initially maintained her account that she had arrived at the premises that morning and discovered his body. She later provided a prepared statement in which she admitted this initial account had been false and that she had been at the address with Brown and Mr Cornish the previous evening.
Day also pleaded guilty to theft and five counts of fraud by false representation relating to the theft of money from Mr Cornish in May 2019 and the use of his bank card.
Detective Chief Inspector Rich Dixey, of Dorset Police’s Major Crime Investigation Team, said: “This conviction follows a detailed and complex investigation to track the movements and actions of Hannah Day and Aaron Brown in the hours leading up to and after John Cornish’s sad death on the evening of Friday 6 September 2019.
“It is clear that while Day and Brown were at his address, John was assaulted and robbed and sadly a combination of the assault and an associated medical episode resulted in his death.
“While we may never know which defendant was the main aggressor in the assault, as both defendants made attempts to implicate each other, what we were able to prove through our investigation is that they acted together in the lead up to the incident and in the moments after. They therefore must both bear a share of the responsibility and I am glad that the jury’s verdicts reflected this.
“I would like to thank all those involved in the investigation for helping to secure this conviction and John’s family for their support throughout. Our thoughts remain with them at this sad time.”
PLEASE SUPPORT US FOR JUST £2 A MONTH
