Man who dismembered father is jailed

A son who bludgeoned his father to death and then buried his dismembered body beneath a patio has been jailed for life in Britain.

Francis Willis shattered his elderly father’s skull with blows from a ball peen hammer after an argument about cigarettes.

He then used a chainsaw to hack apart the 88-year-old’s corpse before burying it at midnight in a shallow grave.

Willis told police investigating the pensioner’s disappearance “you won’t have to look there” when they searched the rear garden of the home they shared in the Carr Hill area of Leam Lane, Gateshead, where a patio had been built.

His father, Frank Willis, was buried in four blue plastic bags beneath the newly-laid flagstones.

Jailing Francis Willis, 62, for 17 years, Mr Justice Clarke said the way he’d treated the body had been “an insult to the dead”.

Willis, who admitted murder, was expressionless as he was led from the dock at Newcastle Crown Court.