Burglar convicted of murder for second time as double jeopardy case makes legal history
A JEWEL thief has made legal history after being found guilty in the first double jeopardy case of its kind of murdering two pensioners 20 years ago.
Michael Weir, 52, murdered war veteran Leonard Harris, 78, and mother-of-three Rose Seferian, 83, during burglaries in 1998, the Old Bailey was told.
Retired cabbie Mr Harris’s widow Gertrude, who also suffered head injuries, died a few years later in a care home.
During the attacks, Weir stole a signet ring and gold watch from Mr Harris and took diamond rings from Ms Seferian’s fingers, jurors heard.
Connections between the two deaths were not made at the time after police failed to match Weir’s palm print to one recovered from the Harris home in 1998.
Mrs Justice McGowan told jurors they had made legal history after they found Weir guilty of both murders following an Old Bailey trial.
Prosecutor Tom Little QC explained to the jury the unique history of the case, believed to be the first to involve a defendant being found guilty of the same murder twice.
It is also the first time a second murder charge has been added to a double jeopardy case, brought in light of new and compelling evidence following a change in the law in 2005.
Mr Little said Weir had been convicted in 1999 of the murder of Mr Harris as well as burglary and attacking Mrs Harris on the basis of DNA erroneously kept on the police database.
The original trial judge ruled it was admissible but that decision was overturned by the Court of
Appeal in 2000 and Weir’s conviction was quashed.
The Crown Prosecution Service then missed a deadline to appeal to the House of Lords by a day, Mr Little said.
But the Lords later found that, in a similar case to Weir’s, the original decision to admit the DNA was correct.
During the trial, Mr Little said Weir, of Hackney, had targeted the two “defenceless” pensioners, hit them repeatedly and left them for dead. On being arrested for the murders he said he felt “angry and upset”.