‘Striking similarity’ between Worksop murder case and double killing

Pauline Quinn was found dead at her home in Rayton Spur, Worksop, on November 9, 2021, having suffered 29 separate injuries to her head and face.

Lawrence Bierton denies her murder on the grounds of diminished responsibility but has admitted theft.

The 63-year-old was jailed in 1996 for the murders of two elderly sisters, prosecutor John Cammegh KC told Nottingham Crown Court in his closing speech on Thursday.

"There was no defence of alcohol-dependence syndrome or diminished responsibility," he said. "He was found guilty after lying to the jury about an alibi. Which is a double lie. This was just brutal criminal behaviour and brutal criminal intent."

He told the jury how Bierton and his co-defendant bludgeoned and suffocated the sisters to death before setting fire to their bodies in a burglary that went wrong at their home in 1995.

“It was cold-blooded murder,” Mr Cammegh told the jury. “The same, we say, as what befell Pauline Quinn.”

He said Bierton protested his innocence for a number of years and only admitted one of the murders in 2012.

“There is a striking similarity in the targeting, the brutal infliction of the violence, and the dishonest strategies deployed by this man to establish his innocence of murder. That jury was not fooled and nor will you be.”

He said Bierton attacked Mrs Quinn after demanding money to buy drink and drugs and had previously consumed shots of rum, half a bottle of vodka and £10 of crack cocaine.

When she pulled an emergency cord Bierton realised: "I have been in prison for 25 years and I don't want to go back there. I need to kill her. I need to do it quickly. And when I've done it I need her car keys. I need time to cover it up.”

He demonstrated “a remarkable sense of self-control” and “strategic thinking” to minimize his role after finally admitting that he battered Mrs Quinn to death with a coffee table.

“This is not someone who has no control over his rational actions,” Mr Cammegh said. “This is a man who is hellbent on a course of action he is determined to see through to the end.”

He said Bierton used “maximum force to deliver blows that sprayed blood up to the ceiling.”

Mark McKone KC, defending, told the jury: “This case is about someone behaving irrationally and losing self control when they are suffering from alcohol-dependency syndrome.

"If you accept the defence doctor is right – that the killing wouldn’t have taken place without alcohol-dependency syndrome, then I submit the defence of diminished responsibilty must be accepted.”

He said both of the psychiatric experts called to give evidence said alcohol-dependency syndrome “played some part in this killing.”

“The defence says it played a major part in the killing,” Mr McKone said. “There is no sensible alternative explanation in this case.”

The jury will retire to consider its verdict later this afternoon.