Guilty, the bully who murdered lover to pay for his life of luxury
A FERRARI-driving bully who plundered his wealthy lover’s estate after she disappeared has been found guilty of her murder. Donald Graham killed heiress and property developer Janet Brown, 45, so he could fund his lavish taste in supercars and buy his second mistress a home. Miss Brown vanished in 2005 and her body has never been found.
He stole £300,000 of her savings, sold her Land Rover and Porsche with a personalised number plate, took her horses and tried to siphon off thousands of pounds from her estate and that of her family. He also spun a cruel web of lies that left Miss Brown’s parents believing she was still alive.
After a seven- week trial at Newcastle Crown Court, Graham was found guilty of her murder and perverting the course of justice yesterday.
After the verdict, police called
‘Controlling and manipulative’
on Graham, nicknamed ‘ Dodgy Don’, to tell Miss Brown’s family what he had done with her body.
Detective Chief Inspector Nicola Musgrove, of Northumbria Police, said: ‘Graham is a controlling and manipulative man, particularly towards women; a bully who deliberately instils fear into people and uses intimidating behaviour to get his own way.
‘He is a callous man who made it look like Janet was alive when in fact he had, motivated by financial greed, murdered her.’
Graham, 60, described as ‘flash’ and always ‘dripping in gold’, had lived with his wife Denise, 66, but had two mistresses.
Last night an acquantaince of Graham, Elliot Stuart, 68, said: ‘People were frightened of him just because of his reputation.
‘When we would go out he would park his car on double yellow lines outside restaurants, like he was in the gangster movies. Nobody would ever stop him or ask him to move.
‘His stepson told me he is a nasty man and made his life and his mother’s life a misery.’
Another friend, and former partner of Miss Brown, known as Mick, said: ‘Janet met Don through me. I serviced his cars, he had a Ferrari, a Porsche, fourwheel drives, a Subaru Impretza.
‘He was polite, plausible, welleducated but if he came and asked you for money you would give it to him because he looked like he would pull your head off.’
Prosecutor Robert Smith, QC, told jurors that Graham’s lifestyle ‘didn’t match his income and his assets’.
Graham and Miss Brown, from Hexham, Northumberland, who had saved ‘substantial assets’ of over £400,000, had been together for eight years. He told her that his wife had cancer and when she died they would marry.
The pair arranged to go on holiday to France in 2005 but at the last minute he pulled out, claiming his wife was unwell, so Miss Brown decided to go alone. It was around the day of her intended departure on June 17 that she was murdered. Her parents Olive and Eric Brown, a former accountant who had ‘substantial’ savings, were led to believe she was living in Europe after Graham sent a series of fake postcards and letters. They died in 2007 and 2008 respectively, believing their only daughter was working in a bank in Switzerland.
The court heard that after booking the holiday, Graham had found a new girlfriend, Elizabeth Todd, 51, with whom he had become infatuated.
Jurors were told that Graham wanted Miss Brown’s money so he could ‘live a lifestyle that involved owning and driving powerful motor cars’ and buy a property for Todd to live in.
His downfall came in 2009 when one of the banks Eric Brown had an account with suspected fraudulent activity and called in the police.
Mr Justice Openshaw said he would pass sentence today on Graham, who was also convicted of perverting the course of justice and had admitted a number of fraud charges. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on Todd who was accused of fraud, forgery and jointly accused of perverting the course of justice.