Vigilante who bludgeoned man to death in Bexhill may have murder conviction overturned

A vigilante who killed a gay man he wrongly believed was a paedophile may have the murder conviction overturned by top judges today.

Christopher Hunnisett was branded an “extremely dangerous man” after bludgeoning victim Peter Beck with a hammer and strangling him with a shoelace, with a judge warning at the time he “may well kill again” if ever set free.

Mr Beck’s death happened in 2010, just months after Hunnisett had emerged from prison after being acquitted over another killing.

Hunnisett had drawn up a “hit list” of men he believed were paedophiles, setting up an online “honeytrap” with Mr Beck as his top target despite no evidence that the victim was a sexual predator.

Hunnisett, who became a woman in prison and is now called Crystal, was convicted of murdering Mr Beck in 2012 and sentenced to life in prison.

However the Criminal Case Review Commission (CCRC) has now referred her case to appeal judges, along with expert evidence suggesting Hunnisett was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia at the time of the killing.

“In the Commission’s view (that) raises a real possibility the court will quash the murder conviction and replace it with one for manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility”, the CCRC said in a statement.

Former altar boy Hunnisett was first jailed in 2002 over the death of 81-year-old Reverend Ronald Glazebrook, who he had been lodging with as a teenager in St Leonards on Sea, in east Sussex.

The vicar’s severed head and limbs were discovered in a sports bag on a traffic island in Hastings, and his torso was found near Eastbourne.

Hunnisett was found guilty at trial and spent eight years in prison before his murder conviction was quashed on appeal and the case was sent for a retrial.

Jurors then cleared Hunnisett of the murder, after he described suffering sexual abuse by Rev Glazebrook. Hunnisett said he punched the vicar to stop him touching him in the bath, and found him dead from drowning the next morning.

Just four months after being released from prison Hunnisett attacked supermarket worker Mr Beck in Bexhill.

The subsequent trial heard Mr Beck used social media and dating sites to meet men, but there was “not a shred of evidence” that was a paedophile.

Hunnisett denied murder but was convicted by a jury, and was handed a life sentenced with a minimum 18-year term.

A 2015 appeal failed, and in 2018 Hunnisett was transferred to a secure hospital from prison for mental health treatment.

In a statement announcing the latest appeal in December, the CCRC said: “If the conviction is so replaced, the likely outcome is that the prison sentence for murder will be replaced with a prison sentence with a direction that C. Hunnisett be detained in hospital.”

Hunnisett was not involved in the CCRC review of the case. Appeal judges will assess the case at a hearing this morning.

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