The Chronicle (South Tyneside and Durham)
BROTHERS GUILTY OF KILLING SIBLING
South Shields man David Rogers convicted of murder after feud
A SOUTH Shields man has been found guilty of murdering his younger brother after a family feud.
David Rogers, 33, of Nora Street, murdered Thomas Rogers, 26, as he sat in a car in Birmingham.
Their brother Samuel Rogers, 30, was cleared of murder but convicted of manslaughter after a trial at Birmingham Crown Court.
Two other defendants, Ryan Hurt, 22, of Peel Crescent, Mansfield, and 22-year-old Macauley Welby, of no fixed address, were both cleared of murder.
The Rogers brothers were found guilty of the horrific attack after a four-week trial, which heard that a stab wound penetrated Thomas Rogers’s heart when he was sitting in the passenger seat of a car in Mill Pool Way, near Birmingham’s Bristol Road, on August 22 last year.
The killing was said to have been motivated by a feud sparked by a “number of reasons” which led to the victim falling out with several relatives.
At the start of the trial, prosecutor
Michael Burrows told the court: “David Rogers told the police he wasn’t involved in killing his brother, that he was elsewhere.
“That was a lie and I understand he has now changed his account and accepts he had a knife and accepts that he unlawfully killed his brother, but didn’t intend to kill him or cause really serious injury.”
Jurors were told Samuel Rogers accepted he was armed with a knife but claimed he was unaware his older brother had harmed anyone.
Still images from CCTV cameras at a care home were shown to the jury, including one of a Ford Ka that blocked the path of the black Vauxhall Astra Thomas Rogers was sitting in.
Jurors were told the victim was pronounced dead in hospital shortly after being stabbed, and that David Rogers was arrested in a wooded area in Haltwhistle, Northumberland.
Samuel Rogers, of St Michael’s Street in Sutton-in-ashfield, Nottinghamshire, was arrested in the early hours and told police he had been in Nottingham.
The court was also told that, after falling out with his family, Thomas Rogers had gone to live with his mother and had said several times
he was going to knock David out. In July last year he moved in Birmingham and there was an incident when Samuel Rogers, who lived in Mansfield, had his windows smashed at his home.
Matters came to a head on August 22 when they drove down to Birmingham, the court heard.
As they went along the Bristol Road they saw Thomas Rogers in an Astra.
They pulled up and stopped in front of the Astra and David Rogers, Samuel Rogers and Welby got out of their vehicle.
David and Samuel Rogers were both armed with knives, while Welby had a sledgehammer, which he used to attack the Astra, the court was told.
Samuel Rogers filmed what went on as his brother went to the Astra and stabbed Thomas Rogers through the open passenger window.
“This is not a case where Thomas Rogers put up a struggle.
“He went straight to the passenger window and stabbed his brother,” said Michael Burrows QC, prosecuting.
He said the whole incident lasted for 30 seconds and the victim had got out of the Astra and walked down the road but then collapsed.
Thomas Rogers was put in an ambulance but on the way to hospital suffered a cardiac arrest and paramedics were unable to revive him.
Mr Burrows said: “Whatever dispute there was between the brothers, the prosecution say there was no excuse for Samuel Rogers and David Rogers to take the law into their own hands.”
Both brothers will be sentenced in October.