Killer dad-of-two jailed for 13 years after beating 'bragging' serial paedophile to death
14 June 2024, 10:37 | Updated: 14 June 2024, 11:31
A father-of-two has been jailed for 13 years for beating to death a serial paedophile who “bragged” about his offences.
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Simon Brown, 28, beat the paedophile with “sheer ferocity” in an “uncontrollable rage”, inflicting multiple injuries to his head, neck and torso including 27 rib fractures.
The killer dad-of-two says he lost his temper after 71-year-old William Rowe “sniggered, bragged and laughed” after seeing a newspaper article which detailed his repeated sexual abuse of two young children.
Mr Rowe - known as Bill - was released from a 10-year stretch in prison just months before he was killed on September 3, 2023.
After pleading guilty to manslaughter, Mr Brown was sentenced to 13 years in prison at Maidstone Crown Court.
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The court’s public gallery was packed with Mr Brown’s family and friends who were there to show support.
In contrast, there were no relatives of Mr Rowe, and therefore no one to read out the typical impact statements read out by the loved ones of victims in such cases.
Mr Brown was described in court as a “dedicated and devoted” dad - but says he could not control his temper when at a mutual friend’s home in Borstal, near Rochester.
Chilling CCTV footage released by Kent Police shows the moment Mr Brown left the house on Mercury Close after the fatal assault.
The victim was left to die on the floor before the corpse was discovered by police over 27 hours later, after Mr Brown’s mum phoned 999.
CCTV compilation
Mr Brown was initially accused of murder before a jury unanimously found him not guilty in March following a one-month-long trial.
But he acknowledged responsibility for Mr Rowe’s death and pleaded guilty to manslaughter, accusing the paedophile of describing his crimes as a “bit of fun”.
Judge Julian Smith said the attack “flew in the face of common sense” and presented a “high risk of death” - and rejected as evidence Mr Brown’s claims that the victim had boasted about his crimes.
“The evidence that Bill Rowe, who denied his offending to all, had stood trials for it and who, since his release, had experienced hostility and rejection, became boastful of the most profound, predatory sexual offending to Simon Brown, is evidence I reject,” the judge ruled.
“Whatever contempt and revulsion caused Simon Brown to attack Bill Rowe that night was not a brief burst of rage and violence measured in seconds but was deliberate, sustained and involved considerable force.”
Judge Smith said an extended sentence was necessary as Mr Brown is at high risk of harm to the public as a dangerous offender.
Mr Brown will therefore serve at least two-thirds of his sentence before being eligible for parole.
He reportedly accepted his sentence and thanked the judge before proceedings closed.
