Two men jailed for mistaken identity murder

Michael Wheeler's body was discovered more than a month after he was last seen

Two men have been found guilty of murdering their friend who they mistakenly believed to be a paedophile, police said.

Michael Wheeler, from Yeovil in Somerset, went missing in August 2024, and his remains were found by police a month later.

On Thursday, after a trial lasting more than five weeks, a jury at Bristol Crown Court found Mark Roberts and David Garland guilty of both murder and conspiracy to murder.

The jury had been told that the two men had mistakenly believed Mr Wheeler, who also owed one of them £100, was a paedophile after reading news coverage about a man with the same name.

Det Supt Lorett Spierenburg, from Avon and Somerset Police, said they "took the life of a man whose last words to his ex-wife were of love for her and their daughter".

Mark Roberts was found guilty of murder and conspiracy to murder

The court heard Mr Wheeler was friends with the men and three others who were also charged over his death.

Their relationship soured when the defendants found an online news report about a man, also called Michael Wheeler, who was jailed in 2003 after admitting grooming and sexually abusing two 13-year-old girls, police said.

Prosecuting counsel, David Elias, KC, made it clear to the court that the murdered man was not the same person, and had no convictions for child sexual offences.

Police found Mr Wheeler's remains at this derelict site in Yarlington

Mr Wheeler was attacked at Roberts' flat in Juniper Close, Yeovil in the early hours of 24 August, the trial was told.

He suffered multiple injuries, including 11 skull and facial fractures, and his body was hidden.

Avon and Somerset Police said that three weeks later officers were tipped off that Mr Wheeler had come to "serious harm" and an investigation began.

Several addresses and open spaces in Somerset were searched before his remains were found on farmland in Yarlington on 25 September.

David Garland also admitted preventing the lawful and decent burial of a body

Det Sup Spierenburg said Mr Wheeler was "brutally murdered by people he had considered as friends".

"He was killed over a £100 debt and because they wrongly decided he had been jailed for child sex offences in 2003, when he would have been just 16 years old," he said.

"The defendants gave Michael no opportunity to tell them they were wrong. Instead, they took the life of a man whose last words to his ex-wife were of love for her and their daughter."

Roberts, 39, of Juniper Close, and Garland, 40, of no fixed abode, were remanded in custody ahead of being sentenced on 13 June.

Garland had previously admitted preventing the lawful and decent burial of the body of Michael Wheeler.

Jack Rance, 28, of no fixed abode, Reuben Clare, 19, of Yeovil, and Angus Warner, 33, of Crewkerne, were all acquitted of any involvement in the murder.