A MAN who shot a father in the head in a row over an unpaid debt has been found guilty of murder.

Tyron Charles, 29, was killed in a shipping container on a smallholding off Foster Park View, Denholme, on September 6 last year.

James Sutcliffe, also 29, had denied murdering Mr Charles, but a jury at Bradford Crown Court returned a unanimous verdict to the charge today.

After eight-and-a-half hours of deliberations, the jury also unanimously found Sutcliffe guilty of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

His father, Kevin Sutcliffe, 60, was unanimously convicted of the same charge, with his mother, Janet Sutcliffe, 62, found guilty of the conspiracy by a majority verdict of 10 to one.

When the guilty verdict for murder was returned, tearful members of Mr Charles’ family, present in the public gallery throughout the three-week trial, shouted “yes”.

Justice Lavender thanked the jury for their service, telling them: “You’ve obviously given very careful thought to your verdicts.”

During the trial, prosecutor Nicholas Lumley QC told the court that on the afternoon of the murder, Mr Charles and a man called Adrian Williams went to see James Sutcliffe on the smallholding to try and recover a debt he owed them.

James Sutcliffe had said that during a struggle, it had been Mr Williams who had accidentally pulled the trigger of a shotgun and killed Mr Charles, but that claim was dismissed by the jury.

Mr Lumley said that Mr Williams had actually left the scene, ringing Mr Charles just after doing so.

He said: “That phone call is the last meaningful contact anyone, apart from James Sutcliffe, had with Tyron.”

He said that James Sutcliffe had blasted Mr Charles with the shotgun, leaving his “face and head full of gunshot”.

He told the jury: “He (Mr Charles) must have slumped against the doors of the shipping container. He must have died very quickly.”

The court was told that James Sutcliffe returned to the scene later that evening to remove Mr Charles’ body from the container and place it inside two building sacks to load into a Suzuki Vitara car.

He then drove onto moors near Oxenhope, dumping the body over the wall into a bog.

The jury heard that the body was not discovered until police secretly recorded conversations between James Sutcliffe and his parents as they visited him in prison.

The court was told that, using details given by James Sutcliffe during a conversation on October 10, police were able to trace the route he took to dispose of the body, and remains of Mr Charles were found in an area of moorland off Nab Water Lane on October 11.

Describing the conversation the previous day, Mr Lumley said: “James Sutcliffe spoke of Tyron Charles having been shot. The three of them spoke of where the body was.”

Mr Lumley said that James Sutcliffe told his parents: “I picked him up over my f**king head and chucked him f**king down.

“I jumped back over (the wall) and jumped on him, made sure he went f**king down.”

During another recorded conversation, the jury was told he admitted: “I blew his f**king head off. It was f**king ace.”

The jury heard that during conversations with their son, Kevin and Janet Sutcliffe had spoken about the location of Mr Charles’ body, making plans to “destroy” or move the corpse.

Asked about what was said, Janet Sutcliffe had told the jury the plans were just “fantasy” in a bid to keep their son’s morale up.

When it was put to her that she and her husband had conspired to do all they could to help their son, Janet Sutcliffe said: “No, we had a conversation with James to let him know we were still there for him. He was my baby.”

Of Kevin and Janet Sutcliffe, Mr Lumley said: “Together with James Sutcliffe, they set about trying to think of a way to cover up James’ tracks.

“They may well have succeeded, but for those secret recordings.”

All three defendants, all of Hill Crest Road, Denholme, Bradford, are due to be sentenced tomorrow.