Killer, 22, who bludgeoned PCSO Julia James to death REFUSES to stand as jury give verdict

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A ‘highly-sexualised’ loner who bludgeoned police community support officer Julia James to death while she walked her dog has been convicted of murder today.

A jury of eight women and four men took just 73 minutes to decide Callum Wheeler, also described as ‘angry, violent and strange’, had ambushed the 53-year-old mother-of-two in Ackholt Wood near her home in Snowdown, Kent, at around 2.30pm on April 27 last year. 

Wheeler, 22, who is being held at Broadmoor high security psychiatric hospital in Berkshire, did not react when the guilty verdict was delivered. 

He refused to stand for the verdict and was physically held up by three members of court security staff in the dock.

He stared downwards throughout and made no expression when the jury found him guilty of murder. 

He did not walk into the dock on Monday morning or after lunch, but was instead carried in. 

Wheeler, who lived in Sunshine Corner Avenue, Aylesham, with his father John, and has no previous convictions, had accepted responsibility for killing Mrs James on day one of his trial last week but denied murder at Canterbury Crown Court.

The prosecution said the ‘extremely violent and sustained’ attack with a metal, 3kg railway jack was not ‘a momentary or spontaneous act of rage’ but one which he had planned over ‘many weeks’.

Having lay in wait for a lone, vulnerable female, he confronted 53-year-old Mrs James, who was off duty and not in uniform, at a spot where it was said she had seen him two months earlier and had even described him to her husband Paul as ‘a really weird dude’.

He had no connection to the mother-of-two, and offered no explanation for what he had done when questioned by the police. 

Mrs James tried to run away but fell to the ground after either tripping in her wellington boots or from the first blow from the jack.

The court heard as she lay face-down on a bridlepath at the edge of a field, Wheeler then touched her clothing, including the breast area of her vest top worn underneath a coat and jumper, before repeatedly striking her to her head.

She suffered such severe injuries – her skull was said to have been ‘obliterated’ – that a pathologist described them as ‘completely unsurvivable’ even with immediate medical intervention and among the worst he had seen in his 12-year career.

Mrs James’ body was found about an hour-and-a-half later by a family out on a walk. Her Jack Russell Toby was nearby, still wearing his lead and unharmed.

Her phone, on which she had sent her last message about five minutes before she was murdered, was ringing.

The bloodstained railway jack was found propped against a wall in Wheeler’s bedroom on his arrest 10 days later.

He was seen roaming around the countryside with the weapon the day before the 53-year-old died, and in the days after as hundreds of police officers scoured the area for clues.

On arrest, Wheeler told officers ‘sometimes I do things that I cannot control’ and ‘you can’t go into the woods and expect to be safe’.

He also told a member of police staff that he would return to the woodland and rape and kill a woman.

The court heard he later remarked while in police custody that Mrs James had ‘deserved to die’ for being ‘a f***ing fat c**t’.

He also exposed himself to a female police officer in his cell, and chillingly warned custody staff he would ‘knock other women to the ground and rape and kill’ if released, adding ‘you can’t go into the woods and expect to be safe’.

Analysis of his laptop revealed the trawling of numerous pornographic websites in the week before the murder, and a Google search of ‘rape’ just two days before, Canterbury Crown Court, Kent, was told.

Although no one witnessed the fatal attack, Mrs James’ Apple smartwatch recorded the exact time and location she was confronted by Wheeler, with a ‘spike’ in her heart rate from 97bpm to 145bpm, a change in pace and a ‘sudden detour’ off her usual route.

The GPS data proved crucial to the murder hunt, as did dashcam footage of Wheeler being challenged by gamekeeper Gavin Tucker who came face-to-face with him walking in a field the day after the murder.

Despite a heavy police presence and cordon in the area, Wheeler had ventured out armed with the weapon he had used to cave in the Kent Police officer’s skull.

A suspicious Mr Tucker dialled 999 and took two photos of him, one of which was later released by police to the public on May 7 and led to his identification and arrest later that day.

As well as the railway jack being stained with Mrs James’ blood, his DNA was discovered on one of the PCSO’s boots, her Berghaus jacket and her vest top. Her blood was also discovered on his Nike trainers.

Other vital evidence came from almost 7,000 hours of CCTV footage downloaded by police from homes, businesses and dashcams which included images and timings of Wheeler in the vicinity of Ackholt Wood.

Wheeler, who lived in Sunshine Corner Avenue, Aylesham, with his father John, and has no previous convictions, only accepted responsibility for killing Mrs James on day one of his trial last week but denied murder.

He did not give evidence however, none was called on his behalf by his defence team, and none of the prosecution evidence was challenged.

In a legal document to the court, he simply stated: ‘I accept that I did go to Ackholt Wood and I did kill Julia James.

‘I do not want to plead guilty to the crime of murder. I will plead guilty to the crime of manslaughter….I believe I was suffering from diminished responsibility.’

However, trial judge Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb told the jury the issues of diminished responsibility and loss of control were irrelevant to the case, and that there were no relevant mental health conditions suffered by Wheeler.

The jury of eight women and four men began deliberating at 3.17pm and returned with the guilty murder verdict at 4.30pm.

Sentencing has been adjourned to be fixed at a later date. 

Wheeler was said by his barrister Oliver Blunt QC to be on the autistic spectrum.

Unbeknown to the jury he is currently held in high security Broadmoor Hospital in Berkshire and, although flanked in the dock throughout his trial by four staff members, no psychiatric or medical evidence was called in his defence.

Due to the random nature of the murder, police believe Wheeler may have killed again if he had not been arrested.

Referring to the extensive police operation involving 1,100 officers and staff, senior investigating officer Det Supt Gavin Moss of the Kent and Essex Crime Directorate said: ‘I can never say what was going on in his mind, but the level of resources used was justified because we cannot know that he wouldn’t have done it again.’

Police have said he dropped out of school at the age of 15 – failing to achieve his GCSEs – and moved to Aylesham from southeast London around two years before the murder to live with his father after his parents split up.

He was unemployed, not studying and described by DS Moss as ‘a complete and utter loner’ whose life consisted of watching TV and playing video games in his bedroom.

He is believed to have no friends, had barely any contacts in his mobile phone, and not even a relationship with his brother.

But residents in the neighbouring rural villages of Aylesham and Snowdown had seen him regularly watching a local football team train twice a week and, more sinisterly, ‘roaming’ surrounding fields and woodland in the months leading up to the murder, at times with the murder weapon.

The court heard others had seen Wheeler in the hours before Mrs James’ death and in the immediate aftermath carrying a large holdall from which the jack, covered in a carrier bag, was protruding.

One woman living near Aylesham village later told police how she had ‘felt uncomfortable’ when she saw him in an alley outside her home between 12noon and 1pm on April 27.

Ten days before the murder two other female PCSOs had gone to his home in response to an abandoned 999 call he had made. But he refused to talk to them, laughing as he branded them phoney and ‘not real police’.

Police were yet to reach his home as part of their house-to-house inquiries when he was arrested on May 7. He was aggressive and abusive to officers who had to force their way into his barricaded bedroom.

He demanded who had ‘ratted’ on him but also remarked ‘Sometimes I do things that I can’t control’ and spoke about wanting the death sentence.

As well as using his laptop to visit websites including Chatabate, Babestation and Pornhub, and Googling ‘rape’ shortly before the murder, in its aftermath he searched ‘PCSO Julia James’ on Facebook and repeatedly Googled media articles about her killing right up until the evening of his arrest.

Wheeler’s behaviour in court was at times bizarre. As the prosecution was opening its case, he was seen in the dock unbuttoning his shirt to the navel, smirking and making a ‘V’ sign.

Mrs James’ family, including husband Paul, daughter Bethan Coles, son Patrick Davis and mum Mary Ayres, attended the trial.

Described as a devoted and much-loved officer, she had joined Kent Police in August 2008 and was assigned to specialist role with a domestic violence unit when killed.

Outlining the prosecution case against Wheeler, Alison Morgan QC had told the court his guilt to the offence of murder was ‘clear and obvious’.

Describing him as ‘an angry, violent, strange, highly-sexualised’ man, she said: ‘He waited for Julia James or another vulnerable female to be in that wood.

‘He waited to ambush her, he chased her down. She ran, desperate to get away from her attacker. 

‘Unable to outrun him, caught by surprise, wearing wellington boots, he struck her. She fell to the ground, she broke her wrist.

‘Then, when she was face down on the ground he struck her again and again and again.

‘She had no chance of survival as he hit her in that way repeatedly. Using that weapon he knew that and he intended it.’

Of his planned attack, Ms Morgan added: ‘He knew those woods. He knew that people walk dogs in those woods.

‘He knew that if he waited for the right moment there would be a lone female passing when no one else was around and when he could commit this attack, and he was waiting for that right moment to come along.

‘He had planned this attack and how he would carry it out. This was not some spontaneous act of rage. This was an ambush attack where the defendant intended to surprise his victim.’