Carty II

I wrote last year about the suicide of Thomas Carty, on remand charged with the murder of Helen Chung, and noted that the (unusual) name seemed to turn up in the criminal courts a fair bit.

A fair few commenters turned up and said quite forcefully that Tom Carty, while a rogue, would never have done such a foul deed, and that the real killers were still free. (It does appear however that after the murder of Mrs Chung, Carty was involved in the subsequent assault on the home of Bernard Dwyer and his family. His thirteen-year old daughter had a knife held to her throat. It looks as if it was a 'same night' operation. Make of that what you will.)

Mr Denison said Ms Chung, just 4ft 10in tall and weighing only seven stone, appeared to be an “easy target”. The gang lay in wait for her as she came back from work to her home, where she kept her life savings, just before midnight on November 5, and then ransacked her house looking for the cash, it was said. Mr Denison said: “They beat her about the head with extreme violence so that she shed a lot of blood around her house. They did that to try to force her to tell them where her money was but she wouldn’t and she didn’t.” All the men could find, he said, was a diamond-platinum wedding ring, belonging to her son, that she kept in her bedroom drawer, and a mobile phone, both of which they took along with her VW Golf.

Mr Denison said: “For standing up to these thugs in her home, all 4ft 10in of her, she paid with her life. She was beaten to death with a level of savagery which is hard to imagine.” He added: “They committed acts of the most terrifying and brutal violence in order to force their victims to hand over their hard-earned money. They intended and expected to take a lot of money and they were prepared to do whatever was necessary and use any level of violence necessary to get the cash that they were after,” he said. “But the victims they chose were remarkably courageous people. They were not prepared to give in to these men.”

Dean Atkins, 26, and Michael Atkins, 25, both of Uxbridge, West London, deny murder, two counts of aggravated burglary, wounding Mr Dwyer with intent and possession of an imitation handgun. Mr Carty, 21, committed suicide in February last year while awaiting trial.

Certainly the Atkins family don't seem to be getting a good press.