Andrew Dawson's Arrest in Whitehaven Harbour

A man has today (Monday, July 18th) admitted to the murders of two men in their own flats in part of Derby and been jailed for life.

Andrew Dawson pleaded guilty to the murders at Nottingham Crown Court of John David Matthews and Paul Hancock in Waterford Drive, Chaddesden in July 2010.

Dawson (48) was a neighbour of the two men in the same flats complex. He visited the flat of Mr Matthews (66) on July 10th and attacked him on the doorstep, stabbing him 18 times.

Dawson then cleaned up and placed Mr Matthew's body in the bath and filled it with water and bleach.

Then on July 25th Dawson visited the flat of Mr Hancock (59) stabbed him to death. He started to clean up but was disturbed as he heard police officers attending Mr Matthew's flat downstairs after work colleagues reported they were concerned about him not turning up for his shifts.

So he placed Mr Hancock's body in the bath and filled it with water, returned to his own flat and left to get a train to Ormskirk.

Officers found Mr Matthews's body that night and discovered Mr Hancock after neighbours contacted police on July 30th after being concerned at not seeing him.

Dawson was identified as a suspect and traced to Whitehaven in Cumbria in the early hours of July 30th by local police.

The court heard that Dawson had previously been convicted of a murder in 1981 when he stabbed a 91-year-old shopkeeper to death in his home town of Ormskirk. He was jailed but released on a life-licence.

Detective Inspector Paul Callum was the Senior Investigating Officer in the case. He said: "Dawson has shown no remorse for his actions and has simply sought to blame anyone he can for the direction his life has taken.

"He has stretched out this process unnecessarily for the families of those men that died for no reason and I would like to express my sympathies for the loss of their loved ones.

"Far from having diminished responsibility in this case, as Andrew Dawson was trying to initially claim, he has total and sole responsibility for the deaths of Dave Matthews and Paul Hancock.

"These were cold, calculated and savage acts. He has shown a degree of thought and planning and sought to conceal and destroy evidence where he could.

"Conversely there was no pre-cursor to this or sign that Dawson was about to carry out the most serious of offences.

"From what I can ascertain there was no motive or reason why these two men were killed.

"I'd like to thank all the officers and staff who worked hard on this case to bring it to a successful conclusion."

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