Bungling burglars jailed over businessman murder

TWO bungling thieves have been sentenced to life imprisonment to serve a minimum of 34 years each for the murder of a businessman who was shot dead during an “amateurish and incompetent” burglary at his £1m home.

Guy Hedger was killed after Jason Baccus and Kevin Downton broke into his home in Castlewood, Ashley, near Ringwood, Hampshire, at about 3am on April 30, 2017.

Downton shot the 61-year-old with a sawn-off shotgun after he failed to give them the code to the personal safe and his husband, Simon HedgerCooper, hit a panic alarm.

Baccus, 42, of Verney Close, Bournemouth, Dorset, and Downton, 40, of Winterborne Stickland, near Blandford, who fled with £124,000 worth of jewellery, were found guilty following a 40-day trial at Winchester Crown Court.

Sentencing the pair, judge Mr Justice Jay told them: “The planning was amateurish and incompetent but that doesn’t diminish the culpability of what happened.”

Much of the stolen jewellery was found discarded in various locations around the area with parts of the gun found in the River Stour near Canford Parish Church.

In a statement read to the court, Mr Hedger-Cooper, 48, described his partner as “his rock” and said that he was “devastated” at his death.

Mr Hedger was a director of the Avonbourne International Business and Enterprise Trust, which runs colleges and a primary school in the Bournemouth area.

A third defendant, Scott Keeping, 44, also of Verney Close, was found not guilty of murder and his wife, Helen Keeping, 40, was also cleared of two counts of assisting an offender.

Baccus and Downton were given concurrent jail sentences for offences of aggravated burglary with a firearm, possessing a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence, and two charges of burglary of industrial buildings.

Mr Keeping was cleared of these offences.