A triple killer has been given a whole-life order for murdering his elderly neighbour after being wrongly housed next to her while on licence.
Lawrence Bierton will spend the rest of his life in prison after bludgeoning 73-year-old Pauline Quinn to death with her coffee table at her home in Rayton Spur, Worksop, Nottinghamshire, on November 9 2021.
Bierton, 63, had been given accommodation in Rayton Spur while on licence from a life sentence for murdering two elderly sisters in 1995, a decision that was described by a Probation Service representative as “incorrect” in court and labelled a “significant mistake” by the judge, Mr Justice Pepperall.
The defendant was found guilty of Ms Quinn’s murder after a two-week trial at Nottingham Crown Court, with the judge describing his third killing as “senseless as it was brutal”.
Handing Bierton a whole-life order on Wednesday, the first to be issued at the court since 2005, Mr Justice Pepperall said: “You have been found guilty of the senseless and brutal murder of three elderly and disabled women in their own homes.
“You showed each of the victims no mercy.
“[These were] sustained attacks in which you used extraordinary levels of violence.
“I am left in no doubt whatsoever that you must never again be given the opportunity to walk the streets.
“The only just sentence in this case is that you should remain in prison for the rest of your life.”
Bierton was jailed for life at Sheffield Crown Court in 1996 for the killings of Aileen Dudill, 79, and Elsie Gregory, 73, in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, the previous year.
The pair were bludgeoned and suffocated by Bierton and a co-defendant before their bodies were set on fire.
He was released on life licence in December 2017 but recalled to prison in July 2018 due to what prosecutor John Cammegh KC told jurors in the 2023 trial were “repeated failures to address his behaviour”.
He was released a second time in May 2020, moving to Rayton Spur six months later.
A so-called “alcohol tag” to monitor Bierton was removed eight months before Ms Quinn’s death after he complained of swelling in his legs.
The Probation Service has said that a serious case review into Bierton’s case has been completed with findings to be shared with Ms Quinn’s family, but that these would not be shared publicly.
In court, the judge said it was a “significant mistake” for Bierton to be allowed to stay at Rayton Spur, a complex for elderly and vulnerable people.
Saika Jabeen, head of the Nottinghamshire county probation delivery unit, told the judge that Bierton’s behaviour on his second release “appeared markedly improved”, but said there were also unsubstantiated links to “Mamba (a synthetic cannabinoid) use and possible benefit fraud”.
She said that “it was not appropriate for him (Bierton) to have been approved housing” in the complex, adding that the decision was “incorrect” and that a second, serious further offence review was also ongoing.
She also said that there was now “greater scrutiny” of accommodation decisions to ensure that decisions were “defensible”.
She added that senior managers would apologise to the family on behalf of the Probation Service for the “serious oversights” in the case.
In his sentencing remarks, the judge said: “That decision (to house Bierton at Rayton Spur) was flawed and you should not have been housed among elderly and vulnerable residents.
“Ms Quinn was entitled to expect better, and the system plainly failed her.”
