Masked burglars ‘gunned down man in his bedroom’
A WEALTHY businessman was shot in his home by armed raiders who escaped with valuables worth £120,000, a court heard.
Guy Hedger, 61, was gunned down after masked burglars broke into his £1million house and reportedly told him: “We will shoot you if you don’t do what we say.”
Mr Hedger and his husband Simon-Pierre Hedger-Cooper, 48, were sleeping when Jason Baccus and Kevin Downton burst into their bedroom at 3am on April 30, a court was told. The intruders are said to have demanded Mr Hedger and his husband tell them the security codes to two safes in the bedroom, but neither of them complied.
The jury heard the couple were threatened with champagne bottles by one of the men before his accomplice shot and murdered Mr Hedger.
It is alleged that Downton opened fire with a sawn-off shotgun at near point blank range, blasting Mr Hedger in the chest after his husband triggered an emergency security alarm button.
Baccus, 42, and Downton, 40, yesterday denied murder, along with a third man, Scott Keeping, 44, who is alleged to have acted as lookout.
Winchester Crown Court heard Baccus and Downton smashed their way into the property in St Ives, Dorset.
Items taken from the couple’s home were allegedly later discovered near the house that Keeping shared with his wife, where Baccus was reportedly staying.
Keeping’s wife Helen, 40, denies two charges of assisting an offender by allegedly disposing of stolen property and allegedly providing her husband with a false alibi.
Yesterday, the jury was played a harrowing 999 call made by Mr Hedger-Cooper as his husband lay dying on the floor.
Mr Hedger, a director, could groaning in pain.
The trial continues. marketing be heard