June 21, 2017 2.23 pm This story is over 81 months old

Pensioner convicted of savagely murdering disabled neighbour

A pensioner has been convicted of the murder of his disabled neighbour following an incident in which his 61-year-old victim was savagely beaten. Vidmantas Svedarauskas had denied the murder of Manfred Jaedke between July 6 and 9 2016 during a trial at Lincoln Crown Court but the jury took just one hour and 15 minutes…
Vidmantas Svedarauskas has been jailed for the murder. Photo: Lincolnshire Police

A pensioner has been convicted of the murder of his disabled neighbour following an incident in which his 61-year-old victim was savagely beaten.

Vidmantas Svedarauskas had denied the murder of Manfred Jaedke between July 6 and 9 2016 during a trial at Lincoln Crown Court but the jury took just one hour and 15 minutes to return a guilty verdict.

Svedarauskas, 67, of Porcher Way, Boston, was remanded in custody by Judge John Pini QC and is due to be sentenced on June 22.

During the trial the jury heard how the two men had been seen drinking together the evening before Mr Jaedke’s body was found inside his bungalow in Porcher Way, Boston.

Svedarauskas did not give evidence during the trial.

The jury was told that he had a limited recollection of what happened.

He was unsteady on his feet when police arrested him and told officers: “Yes. Yes. Problem. Big problem.”

Later he said the man had just passed away.

He told officers: “I just went to see him. We’d been drinking together and this man died.”

Svedarauskas said he never meant any harm to Mr Jaedke.

Mr Jaedke, who used a wheelchair and had previously had a leg amputated, was described as “not a well man” and at the time was recovering from a stroke.

He was on blood thinning medication which made him susceptible to bleeding more easily.

Pathologist Dr Stuart Hamilton said he found 65 fresh marks of injury on the dead man’s body including two significant lacerations to the head.

He said it was “implausible” that the fatal injuries were caused by Mr Jaedke falling.

During the trial Christopher Donnellan QC, prosecuting, told the jury: “Manfred Jaedke was subjected to a sustained assault whilst in his own home. He suffered injuries from which he died.

“The person who repeatedly hit him was the defendant Vidmantas Svedarauskas who was one of his neighbours.

“The sustained attack and the vulnerability of Manfred meant that he bled easily.

“The combination of these blows, and repeated blows, indicate that the defendant at the time of inflicting those injuries intended at the very least to cause really serious injury or to kill.

“No-one saw the assault. Nobody knows why it started. The precise nature of it is not known but the number of injuries he had are far too many for him to have received them accidentally.”

“We may never know what sparked this episode of violence. It came at the end of an evening in which none of the neighbours had seen any trouble between the two men but we do know they had been spending the evening sharing a drink.”