Murder: Axeman gets 25 years for brutal attack

Friday 09 January 2015

A violent criminal will spend at least the next 25 years behind bars for murdering a drug dealer in a frenzied axe attack as he lay in bed.

Darren McCormick (36) was given a life sentence by the Royal Court yesterday afternoon for the murder of Colin Chevalier in his Duhamel Place home last April.

McCormick, who sat flanked by four prison officers throughout the sentencing hearing, had admitted that he murdered the victim, telling police when he was arrested: “I went berserk. There was blood everywhere.”

The prosecutor, Solicitor General Howard Sharp, told the court how some 40 wounds were found on Chevalier’s body, saying McCormick had stood on his bed and hit him again and again with an axe before cutting off his ear with a Stanley knife.

One pathologist’s report said that it looked as though the murderer had tried to cut his victim’s head off, and that Chevalier was probably asleep at the time of the attack, and would have died very quickly.

When police found the scene, they found that McCormick had used his fingers to write in Mr Chevalier’s blood above his body: “If there is no ****. Why can’t I be normal. All liars.”

The attack took place in the early evening of 5 April at Mr Chevalier’s cottage in Duhamel Place. McCormick had arrived there – in the middle of what his lawyer called a five-day bender – and took Ethylphenidate, or “crystals”, while two other men were at the flat.

A toxicology report later showed that he was under the influence of alcohol and a mix of illegal and prescribed drugs.

By 6.40 pm the two others had left and McCormick took an axe and Stanley knife from Mr Chevalier’s toolbag and attacked him as he lay in bed.

He then called his partner and an associate before, by coincidence, three other people arrived at the home a few hours later. McCormick asked one of those men to take him to France by boat only to be told that the tide was out – he then left the scene and was spotted by the police early the next morning standing on rocks out to sea.

When a police officer waded out to him, McCormick – armed with a knife – told him: “There is no going back, I’ve ****ing killed him I’m going to end it will you get a message to [his partner] for me? You have to, there is no life for me.”

He was arrested and searched, and police found Mr Chevalier’s ear still in his possession.

When questioned he said that he had killed the victim, but said: “You’re going to ask me lots of questions, I’m not going to be able to answer them all. It’s a blur.”

Life sentences are mandatory in murder cases, but the court had to fix a minimum period before a defendant can be considered for parole. The prosecution recommended a 32 year minimum period, noting that McCormick had committed a similar attack on a sleeping man ten years ago that almost cost the victim his life.

But his defence lawyer – Advocate Julian Gollop, who defended Victoria Crescent killer Damian Rzeszowski in 2012 – said that a lower starting point should be used, and argued that the minimum period should be between 18 and 20 years.

He added that McCormick had suffered from the after effects of brain surgery, and that he was genuinely remorseful for the crime, which happened after he had started building a life for himself and his family after his release from prison for the earlier assault.

Bailiff Sir Michael Birt said that the 11 Jurats who heard the case had all agreed that the minimum period should be 25 years, but that there had been some disagreement on the legal principle by which that figure should be reached.