'Killers' of child murderer found out about his crime just hours before 'luring him to his death'
The alleged killers of a convicted child murderer – who was stabbed more than 150 times – only discovered his true identity just hours before they lured him to his death, a court has heard.
David Osborne, 51, Ieuan Harley, 23, and Darran Evesham, 47, learned David Gaut, 54, had served more than 32 years in prison for murdering toddler Chi Ming Shek in 1985.
Prosecutors allege Mr Gaut was killed in a ‘brutal and gratuitously violent’ attack after being lured to his next door neighbour Osborne’s flat by the three defendants.
After his death, his fingernails were also cut off and the three men then dragged his body back to his flat where it was found two days later by police, Newport Crown Court heard.
The three men deny the charges.
Osborne’s neighbour Kyle Alford told the court that hours before Mr Gaut’s death in August last year, he and his partner Samantha Jenkins discovered he was a convicted child killer.
They had read on the Black Kalendar website, which lists British murders, that Mr Gaut had been responsible for the death of the 15-month-old in 1985.
The pair then told other residents at the block of flats in Long Row, New Tredegar, Caerphilly, South Wales, what they had discovered.
Mr Alford and Ms Jenkins went to see Osborne, an alcoholic known as Ozzy, and told him and Harley what they had found out.
‘Ozzy was drunk and Ieuan looked a bit worse for wear. He told me he had been up on amphetamine for two or three days. He looked just like he normally would, a bit more on edge,’ he said.
‘He (Harley) was fuming, we all were really. He was very, very angry. He seemed in control.’
Mr Alford added: ‘Ozzy was saying that Ieuan wanted to cut him up and put him down the plughole.
‘Ieuan said, “Let’s get him in here to set him up”. Ozzy just sent the text. Ozzy said he didn’t want any part of it and was going to hide in the kitchen.
On August 4, Harley came to Mr Alford’s flat and they chatted about Mr Gaut.
He told the court: ‘He said, “Don’t worry about him, you won’t see him again”.’
‘I thought he just meant he had beaten him up and had been moved away from this area, like he had been from two previous areas.’
Mr Gaut’s body was discovered by police in his flat at Long Row in New Tredegar, Caerphilly, south Wales, days after the attack.
Mr Alford recalled one conversation he had with Mr Gaut before he died.
‘Just the once when me and my partner were ordering a Chinese takeaway and he said he didn’t like Chinese but would have a Chi Ming Shek,’ he told jurors.
‘That was the name of the baby that had been murdered.’
Under cross-examination, Mr Alford accepted he was a drug user who was using cannabis, methadone, heroin, benzodiazepine and valium at the time of Mr Gaut’s death.
Ben Douglas-Jones QC, prosecuting, has told the court : ‘The deceased committed a vile offence himself. He did, however, serve over 32 years in prison.
‘It is no part of your function or ours now to judge him. He was judged. He was sentenced.
‘A murder carried out to punish someone is as much a murder as a murder carried out for no reason.’
Forensic examinations recovered evidence linking the defendants to the murder scene, the court heard.
The trial continues.
