Killer told police: ‘I’ve done you a favour’

AMAN who battered and strangled a reclusive scrap dealer to death chatted and joked with police when he was arrested seven hours later.

Lewis Finch was found eating a McDonald’s breakfast in a friend’s house in Exmouth and told officers he was planning to hand himself in once he finished his meal.

Finch walked from Harpford, near Newton Poppleford, to Exmouth across country after attacking 47-year-old Geoffrey Pearce in the caravan where he lived on his own.

Mr Pearce died as a result of three blows to the head with a claw hammer and being garroted with a cable tie and his body was then incinerated in a fire which Finch started and which burned the caravan to the ground.

Lewis Finch, aged 31, of Briseham Close, Brixham, denies murder but has admitted manslaughter.

He is claiming diminished responsibility and loss of control. His defence is that he attacked Mr Pearce because he had abused him sexually when he was a child. Earlier the trial heard Finch told police that he had done them a favour by ‘killing a paedophile’.

Police who arrested Finch at a friend’s house in Cheshire Road, Exmouth at 9am on the morning of the killing said they found him calm but tired.

Officers saw his friend Lee Jones returning to the house while police were waiting for reinforcements and found him and Finch sharing the meal when he was arrested shortly afterwards.

One of the officers said: “He told us that if we had been ten minutes later he would have handed himself in after finishing his food.

“He appeared tired and was yawning and he had been awake all night and not had any sleep. He was taken to custody where he was sleeping when I noticed a graze on his head near his right ear, possibly a scratch mark from a fingernail.

“My opinion is that he seemed totally unfazed and remarkably calm, considering he had just been arrested on suspicion of murder. He was not distressed and was engaging and joking with us as if everything was normal.”

Sean Brunton, QC, prosecuting, said Finch had fabricated versions of what happened but that “he knew what he was doing and he knew it was wrong.” The trial continues.