Builder guilty of family's massacre

LONDON - A man faces spending the rest of his life in jail after he was found guilty for the second time of murdering three generations of the same family.

Builder David Morris killed 34-year-old Mandy Power, her two daughters Katie and Emily, aged 10 and eight, and her 80-year-old disabled mother Doris Dawson at their home near Swansea, Wales, in 1999.

The murders were among the worst Wales has ever seen, prosecutor Patrick Harrington told Newport Crown Court.

Morris had been jailed for life in 2002 but was re-tried after the conviction was quashed on appeal.

However, the jury found him guilty again of four counts of murder. The judge gave him a life sentence, telling him life would mean life, a court official said.

The family of Mandy Power said Morris was an "evil monster" who had turned their lives into a living nightmare.

"Once again the verdict today was the right one," they said in a statement read by Power's sister Julie Evans, her voice breaking with emotion.

"David Morris will spend the rest of his life behind bars and we as a family will do everything in our power to ensure he never comes out."

The prosecution said Morris exploded in a violent rage after Power spurned his sexual advances, and beat his victims to death with an iron bar, crushing the children's skulls.

The killings were described in court as "a massacre".

After the murders he stripped Power and attacked her with a sex aid before setting fire to the house to try to cover up the crime.

Alison Lewis, Mandy Power's lesbian lover, was initially suspected of being involved in the crime. She was arrested during the course of the original investigation but was released without charge.

Police said the size of the inquiry was unprecedented.

"It was a vast investigation, the largest of its kind in Welsh policing history," Detective Superintendent Chris Coutts, one of the senior investigating officers on the case, told BBC radio.

Power's family have borne a "terrible and very public grief with quiet dignity and courage," he added.

- REUTERS