Pensioner ‘murdered by relative for abuse as a child’

A PENSIONER was murdered on Christmas Day when he was beaten with his own walking stick and stabbed nearly 100 times in his back, prosecutors have said.

Lindsey Fletcher, 38, claimed she attacked her step-grandfather Michael Eaton when he tried to sexually abuse her as he had done when she was a child, Sheffield Crown Court was told.

But prosecutor Dafydd Enoch QC said Mr Eaton was dominated by Fletcher and was the victim of her violent temper. Mr Enoch told a jury: “On Christmas Day last year, a 72-year-old man by the name of Michael Eaton was killed in his home.

“He was beaten over the head with a blunt instrument or instruments which almost certainly included his own walking stick which had been his own father’s.

“He was also stabbed in the face, head and neck and he was stabbed in the back nearly 100 times.”

The prosecutor said Fletcher stripped the retired delivery driver’s body naked and doused it with bleach before taking her 12-year-old daughter with her to dispose of his clothes on waste ground and in a river.

He said: “In this way, this man’s life was ended, horrible, violent and not very dignified, you may think.”

Mr Enoch said it appeared that Mr Eaton had abused Fletcher when she was young.

The prosecutor urged the jury of seven men and five women to reject what he said would be Fletcher’s defence to murder, that she lost control when he tried to abuse her again on Christmas Day last year.

He said Mr Eaton “wouldn’t have dared”.

The prosecutor said Mr Eaton’s body was found on Boxing Day. Fletcher, of St James’s Street, Doncaster, denies murder but admits manslaughter.

The trial continues.