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Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
National
Nick Tyrrell

Grieving family still don't know what caused son to kill his own dad

A grieving family still do not know what caused a son to murder his own dad.

David Lavender was jailed for life with a minimum of 14 years in prison earlier this week after admitting to murdering his 79-year-old father Anthony on December 29 last year. Mr Lavender died just days before his 80th birthday after what a judge described as an “entirely unprovoked attack” that saw his son hit him twice with a glass kettle, causing him to have a fatal heart attack.

Despite Lavender’s guilty plea earlier this year, family members said in court this week he had remained silent on the motivation behind the attack. He has not explained to family members why he did what he did but said via his lawyer he wanted to apologise for the assault that led to his father’s death.

READ MORE: Son murdered 79-year-old dad in unprovoked attack

The court heard Lavender, 37, of Woodhall Street, Old Swan, was drunk when he assaulted his dad and the court also heard his mental health had been in a poor state for a number of months. Gordon Cole, QC, prosecuting, told the court that hospital staff reported an incident in 2021 in which Lavender told them he “heard voices telling them to stab his dad”.

However, there was no suggestion in court Lavender’s mental state significantly affected him at the time of the attack. Andrew Ford, QC, defending, said Lavender’s wellbeing had suffered since he moved in with his dad following a stint in London.

He had moved back to Liverpool after returning from the capital following a failed business venture. Mr Ford told the court Lavender, a digital marketing specialist, initially had success with his business but the fallout from the start of the Covid-19 pandemic caused it to fail with six figure debts.

Mr Ford said this had a significant impact on Lavender’s mental health but added Lavender did not lay the blame for his attack on his mental state. Lavender’s statements to police officers in the aftermath of his assault on his dad do little to shed any further light on his motive.

Mr Cole told the court Lavender, who was taken to Aintree Hospital after fleeing his dad’s home and crashing his car following the attack, expressed disbelief to police at the hospital that his dad was dead. Speaking in court this week, family members also said he had provided no more information to them on what may have caused him to attack his dad, deepening their grief.

Jackie Long, a relative of Mr Lavender’s, said David Lavender had taken away the chance for them to say goodbye to his dad and that his silence since the attack had made matters even worse. Addressing Lavender, Ms Long said: “You do not deserve the Lavender name, no longer. You took a brother away from his sisters, an uncle away from his nieces.”

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