In the Crown Court at Worcester
20 July 2022
Before:
Mrs Justice Tipples DBE
R
-v-
David Venables
- David Venables I have to sentence you for the murder of Brenda Venables in May 1982, which you were convicted of by a jury of this Crown Court by a majority of 10:2 on 15 July 2022.
- Brenda Venables was a kind and caring woman who was loved by her family and her many friends. They knew her for her sense of fun, joyful disposition and happy laugh. They also knew her for her beauty and the immaculate way she was always turned out. Everyone who worked on your farm thought very well of her, and spoke highly of her, and she was regarded as very prim and proper. At the age of 48 Brenda’s life was cut short when you killed her. Her disappearance in May 1982, and the subsequent discovery of her remains, had, and has had, a significant impact on all her family and friends, particularly on her parents, her two sisters and her nephews and nieces. That impact has been clearly explained by her niece, Jocelyn Sheppy, in victim impact statement she prepared on behalf of all Brenda’s family members and which was read in court today. Brenda’s parents were devastated by her disappearance, and they died with the agony of not knowing what had happened to their beloved daughter. Her sisters, Rita and Jane, spent years waiting for news of their sister and they, and their families, are now tormented by truth that Brenda was murdered by you, her own husband, in her own home and by the indignity of what you did with her body.
- You reported your wife, Brenda, missing to the police at Worcester Police Station on Tuesday 4 May 1982 at around midday. Brenda was, by then, dead and her fully clothed body was in the septic tank at your home, which is where you had put her. I am quite sure that, by then, Brenda had been dead for well over twenty four hours, and probably quite a lot longer. That is because on Monday 3 May 1982 Vicky Jennings, one of Brenda’s closest and oldest friends, spent about four hours with you searching for Brenda along the banks of the River Severn, and also around the nearby lanes and Kempsey churchyard. You had not, at that point, reported Brenda missing, and she was nowhere to be found.
- In 1982 the septic tank at Quaking House Farm House was outside the garden of your home, behind the boundary hedge. It was hidden from view in another hedge, where there were lots of damson bushes, the grass was rough, and the vegetation overgrown. You knew that, apart from two or three people on your farm, no one else knew there was a septic tank at Quaking House Farm House or where it was. It was extremely difficult to find, unless you actually knew it was there.
- You were also well aware of Brenda’s fragile mental health and that she was suffering from severe depression. You told the police at the outset she had been depressed due to menopause and you took full advantage of your wife’s depression in the carefully thought out story you told to the police that, out of the blue, she had left home in the middle of the night in her pink nightie. You deliberately wanted the police to believe that, as a result of her depression, she had taken her own life and committed suicide. Those lies led to an extensive police investigation and searches of all the surrounding area carried out by several police officers with the use of dogs, river launches, and helicopters. That investigation must have costs thousands of pounds and took a huge amount of police time.
- I am sure, based on the evidence at trial, that you killed Brenda in her own home on either Saturday 1 May or Sunday 2 May 1982, and did so at some point during the day. You then dragged her fully clothed dead body across the garden to dispose of it in the septic tank and I am sure that it was you who then put the 19kg cast iron manhole cover into the tank after her. You must have done this intending to weigh her body down in the tank and, having done so, you were ready with something else to cover the tank so there would be no foul smell apparent to anyone.
- Mr Hannam QC, your barrister, has submitted that this was a killing which was not anticipated and, in a panic, you disposed of the body in the septic tank. This was, he submitted, a killing in the heat of the moment. I disagree the whole process of disposing of her body in the septic tank, and leaving no trace whatsoever of what you had done must have required considerable thought, and planning and preparation. This was not something you did on the spur of the moment. I am also sure that you gave thought as to when to report Brenda missing, and you delayed doing so in order that any scent from moving her body across the garden to the tank would have vanished by the time police dogs turned up to search the area around your home, which you knew would happen.
- It is not possible to tell from the evidence at trial how Brenda died. The only person who knows is you, and it is not for me to speculate about it. Nevertheless, the secret location in which you hid Brenda’s body, coupled with her history of depression, meant that you ensured that the police never considered you as a suspect in relation to Brenda’s disappearance. That remained the position for over 37 years. Your luck ran out on 12 July 2019 when, having sold Quaking House Farm House to your...
