Judge jails murderer who threatened to kill him

A JUDGE whose father, also a judge, was murdered in 1968 by a criminal he locked up yesterday jailed a killer who threatened to escape and kill him.

Judge William Openshaw was stabbed to death by John Smith 13 years after sending him to a borstal for stealing.

Yesterday, at Liverpool Crown Court, the murdered judge’s son Peter Openshaw sentenced killer Daniel Breaks to 30 years, just 24 hours after he promised to escape custody and kill him.

Hearing the threat the judge turned to the jury and said he doubted that would happen.

But in 1981 such a tragedy hit the family. The judge’s father was stabbed 12 times in the head, neck and back as Smith, 31, exacted revenge for his 18-month stint behind bars.

Smith, “full of hate and hell bent on settling an old score”, hid in the judge’s garage in Broughton, Lancashire, and leapt on to him one morning as he tried to get in his car.

Smith was convicted of the murder at Leeds Crown Court in November 1981.

In April last year Breaks, who has more than 360 convictions, battered his sister’s boyfriend Simon Sutton, 40, to death.

In another odd similarity, Breaks kidnapped an elderly couple at knife point after the murder and Smith kidnapped a man at knife point and forced him to drive to Scotland.

Judge Openshaw yesterday ensured Breaks, 48, will not be eligible for parole until he is 78.

Breaks believed Mr Sutton “grassed” him to police over a plot to blackmail HSBC.

At the home Mr Sutton shared with Breaks’s sister in Birkenhead, Merseyside, Breaks battered him with a pool cue.

Breaks told his sister and her teenage boys he would blowtorch and kill them if they called the police or an ambulance.

Breaks invited his mother and friends round to show them the corpse.

“That is what happens to grasses,” he told them.

Breaks wrapped the body in bin bags and dumped it in an alley behind the house. He fled to the home of retired probation officer Charles Heaps, 67, in County Durham.

Mr Heaps and his wife Joy, 62, befriended Breaks when he served a 14-year spell in Durham.

He returned their kindness by binding their hands, forcing them into their car, taking their cash cards and driving them at knife point to London.

During the journey Breaks hit speeds of 125mph and swigged alcohol while swerving between traffic. He ditched the pensioners in Southall.

Once arrested he blamed his sister and girlfriend for murdering Mr Sutton.

In court his story changed to blaming two Liverpool criminals he would only call X and Y for fear of reprisals.

It was an “absurd” story, said the judge.

Outside court, Det Supt Dave Kelly, who led the investigation, said: “I am delighted with the verdict and with the sentence today and delighted for the families who have been severely impacted by the actions of one member.”