‘Barbaric’ crossbow killer is sent to prison for 31 years

THE CROSSBOW killer of a retired lecturer has been jailed for a minimum of 31 years.

Terence Whall, 39, inset, was convicted on Monday of the murder of Gerald Corrigan, 74, who was shot as he adjusted a satellite dish outside his home in Anglesey, North Wales, in the early hours of Good Friday, April 19 last year.

The sports therapist was sentenced at Mold Crown Court yesterday to a life sentence.

Speaking in court from behind a screen, Mr Corrigan’s son

Neale said through tears: “How can someone choose to use such a barbaric weapon on an old man?

“Did they really want to cause him a slow and painful death? Because that is what we witnessed and although God will ease the pain for us, we will never ever be able to forget that.”

Also reading a statement from behind a screen, Mr Corrigan’s partner, Marie Bailey, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, said: “It is a terrible inferno inside me every day, thinking of how Gerry was murdered and how he suffered.” Sentencing Whall, Mrs Justice Jefford said: “You have deprived Mr Corrigan’s family of any explanation for what was a horrific death in which Mr Corrigan was completely blameless.

“For your own reasons you clearly had a plan to kill.”

She added: “Your arrogant belief that you could get away with murder was misplaced.” Anna Pope, prosecuting, told the court that Whall, originally from London, had hidden behind a wall outside the pensioner’s remote home and tampered with the satellite dish to lure him into the garden where he shot him. Whall initially claimed he was at home in Bryngwran, Anglesey, on the night of the shooting.

But when GPS data in his Land Rover Discovery was recovered, he changed his story and said he was having a sexual encounter in a nearby field with friend Barry Williams.

Mr Williams denied the claim. North Wales Police said a parallel fraud investigation was ongoing after claims that Mr Corrigan and Ms Bailey handed over £250,000 to convicted fraudster Richard Wyn Lewis.

Whall was given a concurrent sentence of six years for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice for a plot to set fire to his Land Rover, which was discovered burnt out in a disused quarry on June 3.

Gavin Jones, 36, was jailed for five years for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and the judge said he was “integrally involved” in the plan.

Ms Pope said Whall, who was in debt, had given no motive for the killing and there was no evidence of a connection between him and Mr Corrigan, who died in hospital on May 11.

The judge said it was “speculation” to say Whall was paid to carry out the murder.