Skegness holidaymaker murdered after drug-fuelled night

Anthony Robertson, 32, was found guilty of murder and robbery at Lincoln Crown Court

A man has been found guilty of beating a holidaymaker to death in Skegness.

The body of Charlie McGhee Adair, 59, was discovered on scrub-land near a Tesco supermarket in the Lincolnshire town on 3 July last year.

Anthony Robertson, 32, of no fixed address, admitted hitting Mr Adair over the head with a piece of concrete but denied his murder.

However a jury at Lincoln Crown Court took just over an hour to find him guilty of murder.

The court heard Mr Adair, who was visiting a music festival in the seaside resort, was murdered by Robertson whom he "randomly" met in the street before the pair spent a night together drinking and buying drugs, funded by the murdered man.

Mr Adair, from Corby in Northamptonshire, had left his bed and breakfast at around 19:00 BST on 2 July and first encountered Robertson just over 90 minutes later.

Prosecutors said Mr Adair was last seen alive at 05.40 BST the next day when the pair were spotted on CCTV walking to the scrub-land.

Mr Adair's body was found later that day and prosecutor Jonathan Cox told the jury that he had been beaten round the head so badly that his injuries had killed him.

Mr Cox said that while in the scrub-land Robertson had stolen Mr Adair's wallet containing his bank card.

"Over the following hours he'd used [the card] to withdraw cash from the bank account of Charlie Adair, the man he had beaten," he said.

Robertson denied murder but admitted unlawfully killing Mr Adair claiming he lost control and hit the older man over the head with a piece of concrete after he touched his groin.

But jurors heard Robertson failed to mention the claim of sexual touching when he was first arrested by the police or during his interviews.

The body of Charlie McGhee Adair was found on land near a Tesco store in Skegness

Robertson had already pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Mr Adair, the theft of his mobile phone and fraud relating to the use of his bank card.

He was also convicted by the jury of a charge of robbery and will be sentenced later.

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