Killer who slit widow’s throat in 2013 earlier than being snared by sufferer’s bloody fingernails is jailed for 21 years as courtroom hears he could have sexually assaulted her throughout brutal assault
A benefits claimant who slit an 86-year-old widow’s throat before stealing just £40 from her purse may have sexually assaulted her, his sentencing hearing was told today.
The claim was aired as evil David Newton was jailed for 21 years for the sickening murder of Una Crown, 86.
Newton, 70, repeatedly stabbed ‘vulnerable’ Mrs Crown in the chest so violently during the brutal attack he fractured her ribs and set her clothes alight to try and destroy evidence. He may have also struck her with her walking stick.
Outlining the aggravating features of the offence, prosecution barrister Claire Matthews said that, while sexual intent had not been a feature of the case against Newton, ‘we can never eliminate the possibility’.
Mr Justice Garnham noted Mrs Crown’s ‘underclothes’ had been moved but agreed there was ‘not sufficient evidence’ to prove the sick motive.
Newton was charged with murder in 2023 – ten years after his victim’s death – after advances in DNA evidence linked him to the crime using samples from his victim’s fingernails.
The ex-boxer almost escaped justice as bungling police initially treated the incident as ‘non-suspicious’ and allowed a stream of people including relatives to walk into Mrs Crown’s bungalow in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, contaminating the scene.
A murder investigation was launched two days later when a mortuary worker pointed out her terrible injuries, which included defence wounds on hands.
Una Crown, an 86-year-old widow, was found with her throat cut, stab wounds to her chest and her clothing burnt in her bungalow in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, on January 13, 2013
Newton was charged after scientists made a DNA breakthrough, having tested nail clippings from Mrs Crown’s dominant right hand using techniques that were not available in 2013
Ex-boxer David Newton was found guilty of Mrs Crown’s murder by majority verdict
Telling Newton the minimum term he’d serve under his mandatory life sentence, Mr Justice Garnham said: ‘This was a ferocious and sustained attack on a defenceless old lady in her own home.
‘You then attempted to cover up what you had done by trying to set fire to Mrs Crown’s body and her home… the reason must have been to destroy evidence of your crime.’
Aggravating features included Mrs Crown’s age and diminutive size, the judge added, saying: ‘She must have been terrified.’
In a statement released after the conviction yesterday, Mrs Crown’s niece, Julia Green, said: ‘In 2013 we heard our Auntie Una had passed away. Two days later we heard it was murder and our world’s stopped.
‘An elderly widow watching her favourite TV programme, feeling warm and safe in her own home. The attack was brutal, horrific and an assault on a defenceless frail elderly widow.
‘The verdict today has prevented him causing further distress and misery to others. Since her untimely and savage death, three close family relatives, including her brother, have sadly passed away not knowing her killer has been brought to justice.’
Another niece, Judy Payne, whose husband found Mrs Crown’s body when he went to pick her up for their regular Sunday lunch together, previously said: ‘We have tried to move on but it has been horrendous.’
Una Crown pictured with her late husband, Jack, also known as Ron, who died in 2009
A smear of what appears to be blood on a lightswitch inside Una Crown’s home. Blood was moved around at the scene due to the police’s failure to lock down the scene
A police-issued image of Una Crown’s kitchen in her house in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire. Errors by police meant the scene was not closed off immediately after her body was found
Mrs Crown’s body was discovered in her hallway on January 13, 2013, the day after father-of-three Newton, a retired kitchen fitter, got into her home.
During his three-week trial, the jury heard there was no sign of forced entry but the defendant had offered to help her fix a broken back door lock in 2011 and may have had an extra key cut.
When police arrived, they ignored the pool of blood Mrs Crown was lying in and leapt to the conclusion that she had set herself alight from a ring on her hob before panicking and suffering her heart attack.
A scarf around her neck was blamed for the gruesome injuries there.
In a tense exchange with two seasoned firefighters, acting sergeant Simon Gledhill insisted no crime had been committed.
Dave Allen, then a Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service station commander, told him: ‘This scene needs to be secure.’
Mr Gledhill replied: ‘That’s not necessary, as she’s had an accident.’
Incredulous fire station manager Karl Bowden then warned: ‘This could be a career-defining moment and this won’t be mine.’
Una Crown’s bedroom. Prosecutors say they do not know why David Newton killed her – and the truth may never come to light
A picture of Una Crown’s immaculate house. Jurors heard the DNA found on her fingernails actually helped to snare Newton – because she was typically extremely neat
Paramedics and firefighters were then permitted to traipse around the, while undertakers removed Mrs Crown’s body and relatives turned up to gather belongings.
Muddy footprints were left on the floor, people were ‘rummaging through drawers’ and a paramedic managed to smear blood on a light switch, while Mr Gledhill got blood on a key and washed it off under a tap.
In 2015, a coroner issued an excoriating conclusion about the early stages of the investigation, saying ‘foul play was too readily dismissed’ by the officers, allowing evidence to be ‘lost’.
They were later hauled in front of their professional standards department but escaped with no sanctions other than ‘extra training’.
Newton, who lived a ‘stone’s throw’ from his victim, was a suspect from early on, although there was insufficient evidence to prosecute.
A reconstruction on the BBC’s Crimewatch programme in 2013 and a £10,000 reward failed to elicit new leads
But detectives knew neighbours had complained of Newton’s drunken behaviour, which included harassing local women. One had to order him out of her home after he walked in while she was in her bedroom wearing only underwear and told her he ‘loved her’.
The last image of Una (circled in white) when she was alive – taken at Tesco in Wisbech on January 11, 2013, two days before she died
David Newton lived close to the humble bungalow Una Crown called home (both highlighted by arrows). He told police he had not seen her on the day she died
Another said he used to lurk outside her ground floor bedroom window and push open the curtains to talk to her, despite her complaints.
Naïve Newton also told an officer carrying out door-to-door enquiries that he hadn’t had the money to go to the local ex-servicemen’s club, where he regularly played snooker on Saturday nights, on the weekend he killed Mrs Crown, who had no children and whose husband Jack died in 2009.
But he had an electronic key fob to the premises which recorded him going there three times that weekend – including twice the day after the murder.
Witnesses saw the supposedly skint defendant going up the bar several times and changing notes for change to use in a fruit machine.
But it wasn’t until improved DNA testing techniques became available that he was asked to provide a new sample in 2023.
This was matched to DNA found under two of Mrs Crown’s fingernails – three others had gone missing, probably in the forensic lab Cambridge Crown Court heard, in another cock-up by the authorities.
The tiny sample only provided a partial match, which indicated Newton’s close male relatives could also be responsible for the crime, but the prosecution said all had been vetted and ruled out as suspects.
Police on the scene at Una Crown’s home in Wisbech after she was found stabbed to death and set alight in 2013. Police initially failed to treat the death as suspicious
The jury took 29 hours and 13 minutes – more time than was spent on hearing evidence during the three-week trial due to delays and legal arguments in their absence – before convicting him by a majority of 10-2.
Enquiries by the Mail have revealed neighbours’ concerns at Newton’s ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ nature, lurching between ‘nice’ and ‘nasty’ depending on whether he had drunk booze or smoked pot.
They accused him of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl by touching her breasts, vandalising property of those he fell out with, and propositioning a married woman.
He largely escaped the gaze of police because people thought he was friendly when sober and ‘felt sorry for him’ when intoxicated.
Newton was seen stumbling drunk on the night of the murder and a female resident said: ‘When this first came out, I never thought he would have done it.
‘Now, when I think back, I think ‘Yeah, did you do it in your p***ed state?’
Cambridgeshire Police apologised after the verdict, saying: ‘We acknowledge those errors and apologise it has taken this long for Una’s family to get justice.’
Detective Sergeant Simon Oldfield said today: ‘For more than a decade David Newton thought he had gotten away with this most horrendous crime but jurors saw through his lies and this verdict shows you cannot hide forever.
‘Newton will now spend the rest of his life behind bars and our thoughts are with Una’s family at this time who have, after more than a decade, got the closure they deserve and the answers they have longed for.’
