Cocaine-fuelled man jailed for beating disabled father to death after mistaking him for intruder

A cocaine-fuelled man who beat his disabled father to death after apparently mistaking him for an intruder has been jailed for his “unthinkable” murder.

Peter McGarry binged on cocaine and alcohol before brutally attacking his 76-year-old dad Malcolm McGarry in a "truly savage beating" at his home in Sutton-in-Ahsfield, Nottinghamshire.

Police officers found Mr McGarry in the living room with severe head and facial injuries covered in blood in the early hours of 1 December last year.

His son, 53-year-old Peter McGarry, was arrested at the scene. When told by officers he was being arrested on suspicion of murdering his father, he replied: “My dad? Are you kidding?”

A post-mortem examination found Mr McGarry, who was partially paralysed having suffered a stroke in 2013, sustained a severe and traumatic brain injury along with multiple facial injuries, having been repeatedly kicked and punched by his son.

Nottingham Crown Court heard McGarry was under the influence of cocaine and alcohol and that he told officers he believed he had attacked a drug-dealing intruder, not his father.

The court heard he expressed “disbelief” following the killing, adding he’d had a “loving and close relationship” with his father and that they’d been watching football together in the hours leading up to the “unthinkable” incident.

Malcolm McGarry's fiancée, Ruth Todd, said the effect that Malcolm’s death has had is "indescribable."

She said: "My son and I walked into Malcolm’s bungalow that night and saw him on the floor with the injuries that Peter had inflicted upon him.

“We have both been having flashbacks of that image and I have been struggling to sleep. I don’t want to leave the house anymore and it has left me feeling very depressed.

“I just miss him as he meant so much to me.”

In his sentencing remarks, Judge Stuart Rafferty KC told McGarry he had carried out a “savage attack” on a man who “never showed you a scrap of unkindness”.

He added: “It was an avoidable death and you have deprived yourself and, more importantly, other people of a man of value and great esteem. On this night you exploded.

“Some people think cocaine is a social drug you can take, put down and not be affected by. If this case serves any purpose at all, it is to again point out to people – both those selling it and those stupid enough to take it and become addicted to it – that cocaine is an awful and evil drug.

“Without it, you would not be here.”

He sentenced McGarry, of Alexandra Street, Kirkby-in-Ashfield to a life sentence, with a minimum of 14 years and 123 days.