County Durham Man Gets Life In Prison

28 March 2013, 10:23 | Updated: 30 March 2016, 13:50

46 year old Stephen Seddon from Seaham's been sentenced to life in prison for murdering his parents to get his hands on his inheritance.

The jury at Manchester Crown Court found him guilty of the double murder and attempted murder of his elderly mother and father.

He will serve a minimum of 40 years behind bars.

Seddon, from Benevente Street in Seaham had first tried to murder Robert Seddon, 68, and his mother, Patricia, 65, by driving into a canal with them strapped in the back seats in a faked road accident.

The father of three "played the hero'' in the aftermath, after aborting the murder plan when bystanders went to their aid in the submerged car.

But after that plan failed, four months later he blasted the couple to death with a sawn-off shotgun at their home in Sale, Greater Manchester.

His doting parents had made him sole beneficiary of their £230,000 estate in their will - and paid with their lives.