Life for killer who beat family of four to death in fit of jealous rage

A builder was jailed for life yesterday for beating to death a woman, her two young daughters and bedridden mother with an iron bar in a jealous rage.

David Morris was convicted by a jury at Swansea Crown Court of murdering Mandy Power, 34, her daughters Katie, 10, and Emily, eight, and Doris Dawson, 80, in June 1999. Morris, 40, of Craig-cefn-parc, in the Swansea Valley, attacked Mrs Power, a bisexual, in her home in Clydach, near Swansea after she spurned his advances.

He beat her, and the children and invalid mother, then tried to cover his crime by setting fire to the house.

The jury returned a guilty verdict after deliberating for 12 hours at the end of an 11-week trial. The defendant stood stony-faced as the verdicts were delivered but cries of jubilation from the Dawson family in the public gallery were countered by shouts of anger from Morris's family.

Mr Justice Butterfield gave Morris four life sentences. He told him: "These were horrific murders committed with great savagery on four defenceless victims. You have shown not a trace of compassion or sympathy for the terrible injuries you inflicted."

Firefighters initially gave the children mouth-to-mouth resuscitation after carrying them from their burning home, believing they were suffering smoke inhalation. But they quickly saw that the children had suffered appalling injuries, and what had at first seemed to be a tragic accident was a multiple killing. Sixty detectives worked on the case.

Morris, who claimed to have had an affair with Mrs Power, had spent the day in a pub, drinking eight pints of strong lager and injecting the drug amphetamine sulphate. He had an argument with his girlfriend and went to Mrs Power's house at midnight.

Police questioned Morris, a former scrap metal merchant with a reputation for violence and intimidation and convictions for robbery, assault and burglary, within 10 days of the murders, but he was not at first considered a prime suspect because he had an alibi. Morris told police he had left a pub in Clydach, the village where the Power family was killed, at about 11.30pm after a night out and reached his home before midnight.

His partner Mandy Jewell backed that claim, and the focus of inquiries switched to Stephen Lewis, a serving police officer, and his wife Alison, a former police officer.

Detectives spent £2m investigating the couple. They came under suspicion because at the time Mrs Lewis was leading a secret double life of which her husband, an acting inspector, knew nothing. The secret – an affair with Mrs Power – was ultimately to destroy her family, break up her marriage and push her to the edge of suicide.

Mrs Power, a divorcee, apparently turned her back on heterosexual sex when she met Mrs Lewis, a former Welsh women's rugby international, and became her lover. Mrs Lewis and her husband were arrested on suspicion of murder a year after the killings but released without charge after being questioned for four days. Inspector Stewart Lewis, Stephen Lewis's twin brother, who was the first senior officer on the murder scene, was also arrested on suspicion of perverting the course of justice. He, too, was released.

Police attention switched back to Morris whose alibi fell apart after he was arrested in March 2001 when he told police he had not arrived home until about 4am. A bloodstained gold chain found at Mrs Power's home was a crucial piece of evidence against Morris.

Through dozens of police interviews, Morris, consistently denied the neck-chain was his. But just four days before the trial began in April, he suddenly admitted it probably did belong to him. By then forensic scientists had linked the chain to Morris by matching a microscopic dot of paint, found on a gold link, to paint on kitchen cabinets at his flat.

Outside court, Mrs Power's brother, Robert Dawson, said: "It has been three long and difficult years since mam, Mandy, Katie and Emily were so cruelly taken from us. Today we know that the evil person responsible for this will spend the rest of his life behind bars.

"So many lives were devastated by the horror of that night and the lies and deceit that have so prolonged today's conclusion."

Mrs Lewis, who was jeered by Morris's friends as she read a statement on the court steps, said: "Throughout the trial my rights as an innocent person were neither given nor respected as David Morris's defence team did their utmost to make me look guilty by implication and insinuation. I have felt the loss of Mandy, Katie and Emily and Doris more than anyone will ever know." Mrs Lewis added that she would sue South Wales Police for false arrest.

A police spokesman said Sgt Stephen Lewis would be questioned over "matters which came to light during the investigation". His brother was being investigated for "his behaviour at the scene". Both men are suspended.