Age: 50
Sex: male
Date: 1 Jan 2018
Place: Rosgill Drive, Leeds, West Yorkshire
Adrian Mark Casey died after breaking into someone’s house with an imitation gun on New Year's Day 2018.
He had gone to the house with another man armed with the weapon although the attempted robbery had involved a third man as well.
However, he was restrained by two brothers at the house and punched and died soon after.
The two brothers were initially charged with murder but the charges were dropped after the post-mortem examination failed to determine a single, definitive cause of death.
During a police interview the brothers admitted to having repeatedly hit Adrian Casey, claiming that they were defending their family.
Adrian Casey had broken into the home in Rosgill Drive armed with a realistic-looking imitation firearm which he had pointed at the mother of the two brothers. However, they grappled him and beat him and took him outside into the street where they restrained him for about 20 minutes until the police arrived. It was heard that they had restrained him until it was clear that he was no longer struggling.
One of the brothers said, 'Obviously he's come into our house and attacked us, waving a gun at my family, so I was defending myself and my family, I did not want to kill him'.
The other brother said that he had been in the shower at the time when he had heard a commotion downstairs at about 5pm and that when he came downstairs he found Adrian Casey and another man holding a gun to his mother's head and demanding money. He said that he and his brother then restrained Adrian Casey, adding that he had punched him 'with a bit of force'.
The post-mortem examination gave a number of potential causes of death, any of which, including a combination of which could have been the actual cause:
The Coroner said that Adrian Casey had a brain malformation that could have increased his chances of sudden death.
Following the Coroner's hearing Adrian Casey's partner said, 'The brothers enacted a sustained assault on Adrian, and they went too far in their assault on him. The brothers are walking around living freely, while the lives of myself and my family have been destroyed'.
Adrian Casey had been a joiner. He had been born Adrian Bennett but had later changed his surname to match that of his partner as they believed they would marry. They had one child.
The man that had broken into the house with Adrian Casey was sentenced to 12 years whilst the third man who was involved was sentenced to 14 years. They were both convicted of conspiracy to commit robbery and possession of an imitation firearm.
