Student stabbed 15 times for

Serial burglar jailed for vicious attack resulting in murder

By Tom Knowles

A serial burglar has been jailed for life for murdering student Joe Cook at his home in Hyde Park.

    Leeds Crown Court heard that heroin addict Gareth Brear, 31, was high on drugs and alcohol as he climbed through an open window into Cook’s house on Ebberston Terrace looking for valuables to fund his addiction. On encountering the student, Brear stabbed Cook 15 times with a kitchen knife.
    Joe’s body was found in his bedroom by police the next day. He had been repeatedly stabbed in his neck, chest, back and abdomen. Injuries to his hands and arms showed he had tried to defend himself.
    Brear had only been released in March that year from a three year sentence for burglary.
    When questioned by police over the murder Brear said: “I was very drugged up and very drunk and when I get like this my head’s like a ten-piece jigsaw with five pieces missing and I can only remember little bits of that night.”
    Cook was about to start his second year in fine arts at Leeds Metropolitan University and was alone in the house on the night of the murder on August 30. He sent a message to a housemate at 11.46pm saying: “Theres sum 1 in the house,” but it was not read until the next day.
    Brear set alight Cook’s mattress in attempt to destroy evidence. The fire burnt itself out but triggered a smoke alarm which later alerted neighbours who called the police. Brear made off through the front door with another student’s BMX bike, which he later sold for £10. Three weeks after the murder, Brear attempted to rob another house in Leeds.
    Leeds Student talked to students living in the house next door. Leanne Davies, a third year contemporary arts student at Leeds Met, has put another lock on her bedroom door for protection and says she gets scared when on her own in the house. “I think about my safety a lot more if I’m on my own in the house.  And it’s weirdly more scary when you’re at the nearest wall to where it happened next door, I know that’s ridiculous but that’s how it feels,” she said.
    Davies’ housemate, Lottie Hunt, agrees: “I hate being here on my own, it’s horrible. I always lock my bedroom door when I go to sleep.
    “I don’t want to live in Hyde Park again – it just feels like nothing is very safe anymore really, I haven’t felt safe this whole year.”
    Hunt said she had to move out for a few weeks after finding out about the murder. “I was just mortified. It was horrendous,” she explained.
    Davies added: “The guy stole the bike and sold it for £10, so when you think of it like that that guy’s life has being put down as £10 which is horrible. But to him it was just a hit wasn’t it? And I guess if you’ve got a real bad drug addiction you’re not going to think about anything except your next hit. But it was just disgusting what happened.”
    The house on Ebberston Terrace has been boarded up since the murder in August, but Leeds Student has learnt that the owners are planning to renovate it and continue to rent it out. Leanne Davies said: “I saw some people going in next door who said they’re going to do the house up and make it all swanky looking. I think some people wouldn’t be bothered by living in the house.”
    Lottie Hunt said:  “I wouldn’t want to live in the house if I knew, but give it another year and many won’t know about it.”
     Mr Justice Blair jailed Brear for life and ordered him to serve a minimum of 26 years.
    The judge said Joe Cook whad been ‘an intelligent young man with a bright future.’
    Detective Superintendent Bill Shackleton, of West Yorkshire Police’s Homicide and Major Enquiry Team, said: “This was a particularly brutal killing where gratuitous wounds were inflicted on the victim after death.
    “Joe was physically small and is unlikely to have offered much resistance. The violence used by Brear was completely unnecessary and unwarranted.
    “Brear’s criminal lifestyle and drug and alcohol abuse made for a deadly combination which cost an innocent young man his life.”
    “Joe was universally liked and loved and had his whole life ahead of him. His death has left a gap for his family and friends that will never be filled. A murder in these circumstances is extremely rare but the tragedy still remains that a completely innocent young man has been murdered by an intruder in his home.”
    The student’s parents, Lesley and Nick Cook, from Newcastle, said in a statement outside court: “Joe was not in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was in the right place, in his bed, in his room, in his student house. He should have been safe.
    “Joe never knew violence, he had never been in a fight. Joe could offer no provocation. He had no defence. Our gentle Joe had no hope against a murderer determined to stab him to death.
    “Gareth Brear did not bungle a burglary. He chose to discard Joe’s life and then to continue with his work.
    “When Gareth Brear took Joe’s life in the way he did, we believe he showed himself capable of doing the same again. The prospect of him having the opportunity to do so in our lifetime fills us with dread.”