Three people who tormented and exploited a frail and vulnerable man before sexually assaulting and murdering him have been jailed for a total of more than 70 years.
Police said the trio completely took over 63-year-old Terry Oldham’s life before they discovered he was a registered sex offender and viciously attacked him in his Cornish home.
Aaron Mallen, 25, his partner Michelle Casterton, 44, and Daniel Quinn, 24, were found guilty of murdering Oldham. They were all sentenced to life imprisonment with Mallen told he will serve a minimum of 25 years behind bars, Casterton 22 years and Quinn 24 years.
The three moved into Oldham’s house in Camborne, threw him out of his own bedroom and forced him to sleep on the sofa while Mallen and Casterton used his bed. They abused him for fun, forcing him to eat dog faeces and urinating on him.
Then they began to sell off his possessions and took his bank card and pin number so they could steal from his account to pay for their drug debts.
When going through Oldham’s possessions, the group discovered that he was a registered sex offender and carried out a sexual assault with a broom handle that left him with horrific internal injuries from which he later died.
DI Costa Nassaris, the senior investigating officer, said: “For the next 24 hours, Terry lay in the communal area of the house in excruciating pain before he died as a result of the injuries inflicted on him. Throughout this period it would have been obvious that Terry was in terrible pain and was seriously unwell.
“It was clear that he needed urgent medical help but despite the other occupants of the house walking past him to go to the bathroom or kitchen, no one called an ambulance.”
By the time the body was found, it was clear that the three had tried to clean up the scene of the attack, wash Oldham’s body and cut his hair to destroy evidence. They denied all knowledge of any ill-treatment.
Nassaris said: “They claimed that Terry had been like a father to them; in truth they had abused him for their own entertainment, exploited him for his money and attacked him for being a sex offender. The evidence suggested that they had laughed about urinating on him, laughed about forcing him to eat dog faeces and laughed about finding him dead.”
Because Oldham’s home had become associated with drugs and anti-social behaviour, it was at first very difficult to find anyone who would testify against the three attackers.
Nassaris said: “The various comings and goings at the address complicated the investigation and it was eight months of difficult detective work before anyone was charged with Terry’s murder, and 19 months before justice was finally done at court.”
He thanked those who had finally given evidence, adding: “Many of them were not natural allies of the police, having previously been arrested themselves for unrelated matters, but they bravely came forward because they were so horrified by what happened to Terry.”
The case has echoes of that in Cornwall of Steve Hoskin, a man with learning difficulties who was tortured and killed by three people including a girl of 16 after being forced to falsely admit to being a sex offender.
- This article was amended on 17 November 2015. An earlier version referred to Terry Oldham as “elderly”.
