Brenda Heslop was jailed for life with a minimum of 20 years for killing vulnerable pensioner John Hardy
Brenda Heslop, who admitted murdering John Hardy(Image: Northumbria Police)
A bid to get knife murderer Brenda Heslop locked-up for longer has failed. The 63-year-old stabbed her neighbour John Hardy to death on the Newcastle street where they both lived over a £60 debt.
Heslop was jailed for life with a minimum of almost 20 years after pleading guilty to murder.
Following her sentencing hearing, in October the minimum jail term set at Newcastle Crown Court was referred to the Attorney General’s Unduly Lenient Sentencing Scheme (ULS). Under the scheme victims of crime, members of the public, and the Crown Prosecution Service can ask for certain crown court sentences to be reviewed if they believe they are too lenient.
The Attorney General’s Office then has 28 days, from the date the original sentence was passed, to decide whether the sentence should be referred to the Court of Appeal to be reviewed. However, Heslop’s sentence was not referred to the Court of Appeal and her minimum jail term still applies.
As Heslop was jailed the court heard how 68-year-old John, who was known as “Limpy John”, would regularly borrow money from neighbours to fund his gambling habit. And while most were patient with him, Heslop previously said he was “getting on her nerves” and had even warned she would stab him.
John Hardy, who was murdered in Elswick
Then in November last year she carried out her threat after going to John’s home, on Sceptre Place in Elswick, armed with a knife.
The court heard how at around 11am on the day of the attack, John went to a bookmakers then to a friend’s house and agreed to borrow money from that friend, who gave him his bank card and told him to take out £50 and keep £20 for himself. Heslop was captured on CCTV walking from her home carrying a knife. She knocked on John’s door and shouted his name but he was not at home. A short time later, he walked back to his home and was confronted by Heslop, who had stayed there waiting for him.
CCTV audio captured Heslop confronting John and angrily demanding the money she was owed before he was heard to scream and moan and say “Here Brenda, you’ve stabbed us”. He died from a deep stab wound to his chest and also had two other injuries.
Floral tributes to John Hardy at Sceptre Place, in Elswick, Newcastle (Image: ChronicleLive)
The court heard Heslop had genuinely but wrongly believed John was harassing her.
Judge Edward Bindloss said John is highly likely to have had £50 on him at the time of the stabbing, having just withdrawn it for his friend. But no money was found on him after the murder.
He said: “John Hardy’s requests for money were met with patience and tolerance by neighbours but the defendant was unable to manage those repeated requests.” However the judge said Heslop was intending to stab John whether he repaid her or not, adding: “In my judgement, on the evidence before the court, greed and acquisition was not her motivation.
“The motivation was misplaced anger and frustration and desire to teach Mr Hardy a lesson. She was not gaining anything, therefore I find it was not a murder for gain. I’m not satisfied she intended to kill John Hardy. She was, in my judgement, intending to cause really serious harm.”
The judge says that while Heslop has had paranoid schizophrenia since she was 17, there is no evidence she was presenting with any psychosis at the time.
In mitigation Peter Makepeace KC said: “There’s no doubt that to her it was genuinely perceived as harassment and impacting on her life. That’s as a result of her mental condition, not as a result of anything Mr Hardy was responsible for. There were five to six years of complaints about her wrongly perceived harassment. This case, at its heart, is that frustration and anger. This case is just not about money.”
John’s death sent waves of grief through the Elswick community where he had lived his whole life.
Joanne Robson, 41, who grew up around Sceptre Place and spent all her life living in the area before moving to Throckley, previously said John was well loved by his neighbours.
“John just made everyone smile,” she said. “He was old school, he would say hello to everyone.
And Joanne, who regularly returns to the area to see family, said the whole community had been left devastated by John’s death.
“John was there all my life. He had been in that house from me being a baby. It’s awful walking past now and seeing it empty,” she said.
“He’s such a miss. We are never ever going to see him again. He was just lovely. No one would ever say a bad word about John. He was totally harmless.”