Courtroom drama as murderer sacks his legal team
HE REFUSED TO ATTEND HEARING IN PERSON
A CONVICTED murderer who killed and chopped up his landlord before burying the body parts down a badger sett sensationally sacked his legal team on the morning he was due to be sentenced.
Derby Crown Court heard how Daniel Walsh dispensed of his solicitor and barrister’s services just moments before he was to find out his fate.
The judge who will jail him told him he has until January 4 to find a new legal team and that she will hand him a whole life sentence on that day. What remains to be decided is how many years he will be in jail before he is eligible for release.
And in a victim impact statement made by the family of victim Graham Snell, they told how he was “a lovely, proud and brave man who kept himself to himself”.
In a remarkable turn of events yesterday, Judge Nirmal Shant QC, Honorary Recorder of Derby, told
the hearing about the sacking. She said Walsh had refused to come to court, but he did appear over videolink from HMP Nottingham.
After being granted permission to address her, Walsh told Judge Shant: “In light of this whole court charade, I am not happy with anything my defence have given you.”
Speaking directly to the 30-yearold, she replied: “I will grant you until January 4 to find a new legal team but I will sentence you on that date. You have been convicted of murder and that will mean a whole life sentence.
“The only issue will be the minimum term you serve before you are eligible to apply for parole.”
During a near three-week retrial at Derby Crown Court, a jury heard how Walsh killed his 71-year-old victim and then caught a taxi to DIY stores to buy two handsaws which he used to dismember the pensioner.
He then went on to bury the parts in woodland in Chesterfield, some of which remained undetected for months.
Walsh then spent money he stole from his victim at a casino and a massage parlour.
On Friday, December 11, the jury took just over an hour to find him guilty of Mr Snell’s murder.
Prosecutor Peter Joyce QC read out a victim impact statement made by Mr Snell’s family.
In it one of his nieces said: “The fact that he was dismembered in such way absolutely disgusts me. Graham had his life cut short in the cruellest of ways and even now before I go to sleep I worry what he suffered and what he went through.
“Graham was a lovely, proud and brave man who kept himself to himself and I never heard him say a bad word about anyone.”
Walsh’s original trial in March had to be halted due to the coronavirus pandemic.
But Mr Joyce, opening the retrial last month, told the hearing: “The cause of death is unascertained because there were so many body parts but we know what he did.
“He killed him, he chopped him up and fed him to the badgers.
“What you will hear is absolutely awful and what he did was murder.
“It was murder to get his hands on this man’s money.”
Mr Joyce told the jury how Walsh was jailed for six months in 2009 for stealing £5,000 from Mr Snell and in 2014 he was convicted of assaulting the same victim by punching him twice to the head.