Patrick Dear (Jail)

Patrick Dear was convicted of the murder of 47-year-old James McAuley.

He attack him after he thought he had molested his 12 year old daughter in 1989. However, he afterwards went on the run.

They had been friends and Patrick Dear had invited James McAuley into his home in Carlton House on the South Kilburn Estate.

However, Patrick Dear's 12-year-old daughter later told him that James McAuley had been sexually abusing her, causing Patrick Dear to fly into  furious rage and attack James McAuley at his bedsit in Kilburn Lane, Kilburn, slashing him across the face and skull with a Stanley knife.

After attacking James McAuley, Patrick Dear went on a drinking binge and bragged about how he had 'cut McAuley up good and proper'.

It was noted that when Patrick Dear left James McAuley that he was still alive, and would not have died if he had sought medical attention. However, he refused to go to hospital, agreeing only to let his flatmate buy him some aspirin for the pain and some plasters. He then wrapped a towel wrapped round his bleeding head and bought more aspirin and a bottle of Vodka and went to another flat to which he had keys at Princess Road, Kilburn, where the wounds reopened and he  wrote a note on the inside of a Bacofoil box before finally bleeding to death. The note read:

When he was told that James McAuley was dead, he said:

After the murder Patrick Dear went first to Dublin  and then on to Europe and was later arrested in Greece in 1993 and extradited to the UK.

At the trial, Patrick Dear denied murder, stating that James McAuley had deliberatly re-opened his woulds in a bid to commit suicide because he could not bear people knowing what he had done.