2 weeks Ago By [email protected] (Sophie Doughty)
It was a fatal attraction that would end in brutal murder Peter Hedley was already vulnerable when he met twisted fantasist Clare Humble, suffering from epilepsy, brittle bone disease, depression and a drink problem. And the frail former Royal Mail worker did not stand a chance after falling into the the clutches of his domineering killer. Peter was battered and stabbed to death by Humble in a sustained attack at their rented flat in Bedlington, in November 2014.
The killer then set fire to her partners body in a wooded area of Newcastle. Humble, who was described in court as a “vicious and scheming woman”, was been jailed for life with a minimum of 20 years after jurors convicted her of 49-year-old Peter's murder. And today, 10 years on, we take a look back at from Humble's horrifying crime.
Newcastle Crown Court heard how Humble, then 50, subjected vulnerable Peter Hedley, who she had been in a relationship with for seven years, to a sustained onslaught, smashing his face, stabbing him with broken crockery and causing horrific damage to his eye. With the help of a former partner, she then took the body, taped-up and rolled in carpet, to woodland near Newburn in Newcastle set it on fire using petrol and diesel. Frustrated that the corpse didn’t turn to ashes as she had hoped, Humble and her ex then dragged the fire-damaged body into bushes and left it there.
Peter's remains were discovered by a dog walker on November 7, 2014. But before disposing of her victim’s body herself, Humble tried to enlist the help of Peter’s pal Stephen Carlyon, an experienced butcher and slaughterman. Stephen who had known Peter for years, previously told the Chronicle what happened.
“She just knocked on my door and said; ‘Butch, I’ve killed Peter’. And then she asked me to cut him up," he said. "I didn’t believe her until two detectives turned up at my door.
I’m a proper butcher, but I would never raise my hands to anyone, and I’d never do that. I just couldn’t believe it. "She killed my friend then tried to get me to help her.
I just couldn’t believe she asked me to do it. You would just never expect somebody could do that to a person. And Peter was just a nice person.
” After Humble was jailed more disturbing details of her twisted life were revealed. Her former housemate told how she chased him with a hammer after an argument and asked him to smuggle alcohol in to a psychiatric hospital for her. But Henry Nicholson, who gave Humble a room at his Gosforth home when she had nowhere to stay, said he was stunned when the full extent of her evil was revealed.
He told the Chronicle at the time: "I never believed she could do something like that. It’s horrendous. Murder is bad enough, but she didn’t just murder him, it was like something off a horror film.
"I met her at a friend’s house just socially and I got to know her. She said she was looking for accommodation, there was nothing unusual about her at first and she seemed all right so I said she could move in to mine. Obviously I didn’t know she was a psycho at the time.
” Some time later Humble accused Henry of stealing from her and went at him with a hammer – he narrowly escaped from her. “I phoned the police and they met me at the Coxlodge club. I explained what happened and they went up to see her.
She had taken some of my tools out the car. But the police just told me to keep away from her." Henry did not see Humble for a couple of years but when they met again she had started a relationship with Peter.
She told him the hammer incident had just been ‘a bit of a joke’ and persuaded him to let her and Peter move in with him. But Henry returned home one day to discover Peter and Humble had left, leaving a bizarre note saying: “Don’t Rumble with the Humble”. Humble, 50, and Peter, 49, moved to a property in Bedlington and it was here in Burdon Terrace, she killed.
It was also revealed that Humble had previous convictions for behaving in a violent and aggressive manner, which included attacking and bullying a former neighbour, who reported her to police for smashing up plants outside her home. And Rachel Ayre said she believed at the time that Humble was capable of more serious violence. She said: "I thought then she was the kind of person that was capable of killing someone.
It was just the way she went on and the fact I hadn’t done anything to her. She was a frightening person, it was horrendous." And Peter's friends and family revealed that they feared for his safety after he got together with Humble, jurors were told.
Peter’s sister, Judith Gibson, knew Humble was bad news and became so concerned about her brother she reported her worries to police shortly before the murder. She feared Humble, who portrayed herself as some kind of guardian angel and claimed she had kept Peter alive for four years, was controlling him, and she was suspicious that Humble always made excuses not to meet her. Judith formed the view Humble was a fantasist and reported her concerns to her brother’s addiction worker and Northumbria Police not long before he was killed.
And she was not the only one to be worried about the relationship. Peter, who lost his job due to his alcoholism in 2008, would still visit former colleagues at the sorting office in Blyth on occasions. Former workmates said his drink problem had spiralled after Peter’s quest to find his biological father, having been adopted as a baby, didn’t work out well.
And on one visit Peter told friend Lee Hickson that Humble had pushed him down some stairs. “He just used to say he met this lass and she was mental,” Mr Hickson told jurors during Humble’s trial. “She had taken his bank card from him and he said he had no money.
He said she was schizophrenic and was always flying off the handle with him. I just said ‘Peter what are you doing with a lass like that, you should not be there with her’. He seemed to listen but was not bothered.
“I never met her. I knew Peter was a full-blown alcoholic and it seemed like he was only there to meet her needs, financially. He was easily led.
Even though he was being used, the roof over his head seemed more important at the time.” Another former workmate described how, when Peter visited them in the months before his death, he said his girlfriend had taken his bank card and he had walked five miles to the depot and asked for £2 to get the bus home. In locking Humble up Mrs Justice Elizabeth Laing said: "You were Mr Hedley’s partner, and told the jury you and he saw each other as man and wife.
Of all people, you knew how frail and vulnerable he was. "He trusted you with his happiness and his life and you broke that trust. Only you know exactly what happened but it is clear from the expert evidence you attacked him brutally and over a long period.
“You punched and kicked him in the face, broke his cheekbone and ribs and left arm. You inflicted several cuts on his back with at least two broken pieces of bowl and possibly with a knife. "You stabbed him several times with something sharp, you attacked his eye and maybe tried to gouge it out.
You hit him with a heavy, round table top when he was already bleeding, at least three times. “He must have suffered dreadfully before he lost consciousness. I am sure, after your initial attack, he would not have been able to resist you or defend himself.
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