Glastonbury yoga teacher Dawn Lewis murdered her lodger

A yoga teacher has been found guilty of murdering her lodger after he refused to move out.

Dawn Lewis, 54, stabbed Glenn Richards, 61, on the evening of 18 April at her cottage in Glastonbury.

Lewis claimed she had acted in self-defence, but was convicted by jurors at Bristol Crown Court earlier.

An expert said knife wounds to her leg were probably self-inflicted and she previously told friends she planned to stab the victim and then herself.

The jury deliberated for less than nine hours, coming to a majority verdict of 11-1.

Lewis will be sentenced on Friday and Judge William Hart told her to expect a life sentence.

Lewis said Mr Richards, who she had known for 12 years, started changing his behaviour not long after he moved in at the end of last year.

She said he became “very distressed and depressed” due to losing his job in the charity shop where they met.

Angry text messages shown to the jury revealed their relationship rapidly deteriorated in the five months they were living together.

The court heard Mr Richards had asked Lewis to marry him so she could have his pension when he died, despite her being gay and in a relationship. She said he grew jealous of all of her male friends.

She told the court his behaviour became “stalkerish” and he intentionally walked in on her in the shower or in bed, even when he knew she was having sex.

During the trial, the court heard Mr Richards had served time in prison for stabbing his ex-wife to death in front of their two children in 2002 while in the grip of mental illness.

Mr Richards served nine years for manslaughter and was released in 2011.

He had been living in council housing in Street, Somerset, before moving in with Lewis.

Friends of Lewis said she had previously discussed at a dinner party how she might get away with murder by stabbing someone then turning the knife on herself.

Peter Bredell told the court on Wednesday that in a video call on the day of the killing, Ms Lewis told him: “I am going to stab him and stab myself”.

He then mimed the stabbing motion to the leg she allegedly made with the knife.

Neighbour George Schomburg said Lewis had made a similar claim at a dinner party a few months earlier.

The jury was told the doctor who stitched up Ms Lewis’s three wounds suggested they might have been self-inflicted because they were all in the same place and of decreasing severity.

Doctor Imran Khan said often if the first wound was painful, the following were more hesitant and less severe.

Lewis told the court she began carrying a knife out of fear Mr Richards might hurt her, but she said she did not contact the police because she did not want to put him in jeopardy owing to his previous convictions.

But prosecutor Eloise Marshall KC challenged Lewis and said: “You weren’t scared.”

When Lewis called 999 on 18 April, paramedics found her covered in blood and Mr Richards on the floor.

Judge Hart reminded jurors of Lewis’ evidence in which she claimed to have heard Mr Richards pacing upstairs before there was an “almighty bang”.

She said she kicked down the door to his room and found him holding a knife before he lunged at her.

Lewis claimed she managed to grab the knife from him and stabbed him back.

But the prosecution argued Lewis had intended to kill Mr Richards and had stabbed him in the back as he walked away, before mocking-up the scene to make it look like he had attacked her.

Det Insp Neil Meade of Avon and Somerset Police said Mr Richards had been “estranged from his sons for a number of years” but had recently begun to reconnect.

“They were due to meet up in the near future but Lewis’ actions robbed them of this opportunity,” he said.

Additional reporting by Nathan Heath

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