Murder of Daniel Handley

Daniel Handley (born 1985) was murdered in East London in 1994. Timothy Morss (born 11 March 1963) and partner Brett Tyler (born 1965) were sentenced to life sentences in 1996 for abducting, sexually assaulting and murdering the nine-year-old boy. When the pair, along with two others, received 50-year tariffs imposed by Home Secretary David Blunkett in 2002, this was overturned within 24 hours by the European Court of Human Rights.

The crime

Daniel was fixing a chain on his bicycle in Beckton, London, on 7 October 1994, when he was approached by two men in a Peugeot 405. The men had been cruising the area looking for a young, pre-teen, fair haired boy to make real their fantasy of abducting such a boy, sexually abusing him and then killing him. The driver of the car claimed to be lost, and asked Daniel to show him directions on a map. The map was placed across the back seat of the car and, when Daniel leaned inside to look at it, one of the men pushed him into the car and the other drove them off. They drove Daniel to a flat, where each man sexually abused him in turn while the other videoed the activity with a camcorder. Afterwards, they took Daniel to a layby near Hungerford in Berkshire, where he was again sexually abused before being strangled to death with a rope. His killers dumped his body in a shallow grave near Bristol, where it was found in March 1995 – five months after he was last seen alive.^[1]

Trial

The pair were found guilty of Daniel's murder at the Old Bailey on 17 May 1996. They were sentenced to life imprisonment by the trial judge, who condemned them as "vultures" and recommended that they should never be set free. After their trial, it was revealed that the pair were serial child sex offenders who had also abused children in the Philippines.^[2]

It was further revealed that they had met in Wormwood Scrubs Prison during the early 1990s, while they were serving prison sentences for child sex offences. One of the men already owned a house near Bristol, a minicab firm and a florist's shop, assets which had been obtained with his former partner. They fled to the Philippines after Daniel's death, but by the time they returned to Britain, Daniel's body had been found, and they were quickly arrested on suspicion of murder. One of the killers later recalled "the feeling of sexual excitement when I grabbed his body and pushed him into the car, the fear of being caught and the excitement that we might get away with it. It was like a fantasy."^[3]

50-year tariffs overturned

On 24 November 2002, the pair were two of four child murderers (the others being Howard Hughes and Roy Whiting) who received 50-year tariffs imposed by Home Secretary David Blunkett, effectively meaning that they will remain in prison until at least 2045 and the ages of 82 and 80 respectively.^[4] However, this system was declared illegal within 24 hours by the European Court of Human Rights as well as the High Court for England and Wales, following a legal challenge by convicted double murderer Anthony Anderson. The final decision on a life sentence prisoner's minimum term now rests with the High Court following a recommendation by the trial judge.^[5]

References