Child of Dudley murder victim 'grew up thinking he'd been abandoned' as killer kept his secret for 28 years

A murdererer who beat a mother-of-seven to death in 1998 and disposed of her remains months later while pretending she had abandoned her children was told by a judge he had done “a dreadful thing” as he sent him to prison.

Trevor Dunkley made a shock admission to the murder of Patricia Lashley on July 7 this year, after officers went to question him as part of a decades-long missing person inquiry.

Dunkley told police “I killed her, I’m sorry” – and went on to describe hiding his victim’s body in the cellar of his then home in Hall Street, Dudley.

Sentencing Dunkley to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 10 years and six months at Wolverhampton Crown Court today, Judge Michael Chambers KC told the former furnaceman that killing the then 33-year-old had left her baby son and six other children wrongly believing they had been abandoned.

Judge Chambers, who was told Dunkley took the baby to social services and claimed Ms Lashley had abandoned him, said: “Twenty-eight years ago in September of 1998, you were in a relationship with Patricia Lashley.

“She had, as you clearly knew, a nine-month-old baby who was still breastfeeding.”

Dunkley, who was not the baby’s father, had covered up the killing by lying that his victim had gone away, Judge Chambers said.

He told Dunkley: “You took the child to social services and he was brought up by adoptive parents.

“He grew up thinking, obviously quite falsely, that he had been abandoned by his mother, as did his siblings.

“That is in my judgement a grossly aggravating factor.”

The judge said he accepted that Dunkley was genuinely remorseful, but what he had done was “a dreadful thing” and the passage of time was solely due to untruths he had maintained for 28 years.

Dunkley, latterly of Himley Road in Dudley, pleaded guilty in September to murder and preventing a lawful burial.

Several members of her family, including three of her children, were present in court to see Dunkley sentenced.

Prosecutor Robert Price told the court Dunkley was seen to become emotional on the day of his arrest, before telling police he had “just snapped” and repeatedly hit Ms Lashley around the head.

He also told police he had put the body in the cellar, could then hear rats under the kitchen floor, and had disposed of bones over a period of weeks.

Mr Price said Dunkley also claimed he did not love the victim, did not have a sexual relationship with her, and “just wanted to help with the baby”.

He said the pair had met while Ms Lashley was pregnant and living in Dudley, and on the day of the murder, he had returned home after a night shift and had attacked her with his fists while she was in bed – saying he “flipped”.

After the murder, Dunkley, who was 38 at the time, told detectives he covered Ms Lashley’s body with bedding and took her down to the cellar, disposing of her remains in four stages.

Ms Lashley was reported missing by her sister in June 1999 and in the years following her disappearance, regular appeals were made to try to locate her, including in the Big Issue and on Good Morning Britain.