Two Jailed Over Plot To Kill Grandad

A Hampshire woman and her son have been jailed for plotting to murder an 89-year-old relative for his money.

The pensioner's adopted daughter, 49, was sentenced to 17 years and her 19-year-old son was given an indeterminate term in a young offenders' institution. He was told he must serve seven and a half years before he can be considered for release.

The elderly man, who suffered from dementia and lived with his wife, was attacked with bricks at his bungalow in a village near Winchester on November 15 last year.

This was after the family, who cannot named for legal reasons, had launched a campaign to try to scare him to death by smashing a window at his home and cutting the fuel line of his car to try to make it explode.

The pair were found guilty at Winchester Crown Court on Wedneday August the 10th of conspiracy to murder.

The son's 17-year-old girlfriend and the woman's 16-year-old daughter were also found guilty of conspiracy to murder. Another daughter, aged 14, was acquitted of that charge but convicted of wounding with intent.

Mr Justice Foskett called the plot ''despicable and inhuman'' in what he described as a ''unique sentencing exercise''.

He said the plot and the attempts to kill the pensioner ''will defy belief in the minds of any right-thinking person''.

During the six-week trial, the jury was told the elderly man was lured outside his home by his daughter pretending to have fallen over. He then was knocked to the ground by the son and hit with bricks by the two young girls.

The prosecution said the attack was the final act aimed at killing him for his money even though he had generously given cash for cars and horses for the family from Eastleigh, Hants, which had been squandered.

The pensioner survived the attack with cuts and bruises and was able to tell paramedics, who were called by his daughter, that he had been hit. He is now in a residential home with his wife.

The court heard that the daughter came to her senses and stopped the attack and tried to tell ambulance staff her father had fallen but the family was arrested.

In the preceding weeks, some family members researched how to kill him on the internet with Google searches such as ''dying in your sleep'', ''1,000 ways to die'', ''poisonous toadstools'', ''delayed concussion and brain swelling'', and ''easiest way to kill an old person''.

The youngest of the family admitted she had hit her grandfather with a brick but only ''gently'' and her mother, brother and his girlfriend had talked of killing him in the car on the way.

All five had denied the charges. The three girls will be sentenced on September 29.