A drunk who fatally attacked his own grandfather – a ‘world-renowned’ Jaguar restorer – before smashing a pint glass over the head of a man in a nearby working men’s club was jailed today for 15 years.
Jakob Walpole, 33, was sentenced after being convicted last week of the manslaughter of John Brown, 81, following the attack in the pensioner’s bungalow.
Mr Brown died in hospital six days later after suffering a bleed on the brain as a result of the ‘brutal’ assault which came after Walpole had embarked on an all-day drinking session.
Moments before he was assaulted, Mr Brown was seen pleading for help in front of an outside security camera which was linked to his daughter – Walpole’s mother.
After attacking his grandfather, who had recently been diagnosed with dementia, volent Walpole then headed to a local working men’s club.
Within an hour of the attack on Mr Brown, he was recorded smashing a glass over the back of the head of patron Dennis Hopson.
Walpole was today handed the custodial sentence with a further two years on extended licence.
The defendant sat in the dock at Warwick Crown Court wearing a grey tracksuit with his head down while Judge Kristina Montgomery KC sentenced him and said: ‘(Mr Brown) was an exceptionally small man in deteriorating physical health who had been diagnosed with dementia.
Jakob Walpole was convicted of the manslaughter of Mr Brown last week
Jakob Walpole was John Brown’s grandson – and had once worked with him restoring cars at the garage on School Road in Bulkington
John Brown was celebrated the world over for his talents at restoring Jaguars at his garage in Bulkington, Warwickshire
‘Your visits (to Mr Brown’s home) were made to exploit his love… by taking money from both your grandparents to fund your lifestyle. You were an intimidating and persistent nuisance in their lives.’
Walpole had been cleared of Mr Brown’s murder but convicted of an alternate charge of manslaughter following a four-week trial at Warwick Crown Court.
Walpole was also convicted of the glassing attack on Mr Hopson at Bulkington Working Men’s Club in Warwickshire, a separate assault on a barman who frogmarched him from the premises following the incident and breaching a restraining order.
The court heard that on the night Walpole attacked his grandfather, Mr Brown ‘stood up to’ the defendant who was asking for money, before the elderly man was struck to the head.
Walpole repeatedly said ‘shut up’ from the dock while his mother Lynda Brown read a victim impact statement to the court today.
Ms Brown said: ‘The tears we have shed could fill buckets and I live with the knowledge my son caused the death of my beloved father.
‘Even though he’s been in prison, we are still in fear. Mum is terrified he will be back knocking at the door or her bedroom window.
‘She lives in this fear constantly and we fear the day he’s released again.’
Walpole ‘never had any friends’ and was jailed repeatedly in the years preceding the fatal attack on his grandfather
Walpole, pictured posing in the driver’s seat of a classic Jaguar in his grandfather’s workshop, once fancied himself as a possible successor to a master craftsman.
Mr Brown was celebrated the world over for his talents at restoring Jaguars at his garage in Bulkington and hoped he could make an honest man of his troubled grandson.
But a few years after Walpole plastered his social media with pictures of the cars he had helped Mr Brown fix up, he killed the man who had shown him such kindness in his own home.
The victim’s ‘bedbound’ wife Dorothy, who was known as Dot, had a broken hip at the time, could only lie helplessly in an adjacent bedroom as Mr Brown suffered a brutal attack.
The Daily Mail can reveal the extent of the torment Walpole, who was known as Jake, had inflicted on his loving grandparents, persistently defying a restraining order to demand cash for his drink-fueled lifestyle.
Perhaps the cruellest irony was that Mr Brown, 81, had been virtually the last person in Walpole’s life still prepared to try to help him after years of violence and criminality.
Mr Brown’s closest friend, Bob Darlaston, told the Mail said that his friend had often spoken to him about his grandson and expressed confusion about his inability to lead a productive and independent life.
‘Jake never had any friends,’ said Mr Darlaston. ‘No-one in the village liked him. He had a temper whether or not he’d had a drink.
Some of Walpole’s harassment convictions related to his grandparents and his own mother was forced to take out a restraining order against him.
People gave him a wide berth. They knew what he was like and how disrespectfully he treated his grandparents.
Several years ago, he hoped to give Walpole a chance at an honest living with a job at his restoration business, Leaping Cats, where he built and fixed up classic Jaguars, including the XK series.
Mr Brown’s cars were celebrated the world over. They had featured in the Indiana Jones film Raiders of the Lost Ark and his family would later describe him as a ‘world-renowned figure’ in the restoration industry, whose reputation, they said, was ‘unmatched’.
Yet this ‘true craftsman’ was left with no choice but to fire his grandson – who is estranged from the rest of his family – after he became aggressive towards other members of staff.
Mr Darlaston said: ‘Jake had a job at the factory before John closed the business.
‘He worked there as a tinsmith, rolling metal, but John had to sack him because he was abusive to the other staff members, that was about 18 months (prior to the atack), I think.
‘John had only retired about nine months ago. He was a fit man for his age and used to walk everywhere.
‘You just don’t ever think someone who has reached his age and led such a happy and successful life would end up being killed.’
Between 2012 and 2023, Walpole was convicted of wounding, racially aggravated harassment, stalking and at least three other harassment convictions
A stint in prison soon followed.
It was just the latest installment in a lengthy criminal history. Between 2012 and 2023, Walpole was convicted of wounding, racially aggravated harassment, stalking and at least three other harassment convictions.
Some of those harassment convictions related to his grandparents and such was the depth of his hostility towards his family, his own mother took out a restraining order against him.
Upon his most recent release it was, again, Mr Brown there to pick up the pieces.
Desperate not to see his grandson end up on the street, he told him he could stay in a flat above the premises he used for his restoration business.
It was a decision taken against his better judgement – and in spite of the numerous harassment convictions.
Mr Darlaston said: ‘John knew only too well that Jake was always trying to take advantage of him, blagging money off him, shouting and bullying him but he didn’t have the heart to turn his back on his grandson.
‘Jake had always had anger issues and hadn’t been out of prison long when he turned up at John’s asking for money and somewhere to stay. John told me I can’t have him with nowhere to live and no food’.’
For Mr Brown, the reappearance of Walpole in his life last year could not have been at a worse time, as he had not long begun a well-earned retirement.
But, with grim predictability, it did not take long for Walpole to mount an escalating campaign of intimidation, against the man who put a roof over his head.
Friends of the couple told the Mail that Mr Brown was forced to install CCTV at his home after Walpole showed up to demand money and then threw a brick at a window when he couldn’t get inside.
Mr Darlaston said: ‘When he couldn’t get in at the back door, he threw a brick at Dot’s bedroom window while a carer was in there but because it was double glazed, it only smashed the outside pane. I know John had CCTV fitted at the house after that.
Jaguars restored at Leaping Cats had featured in the Indiana Jones film Raiders of the Lost Ark – Mr Brown’s family described him as a ‘world-renowned figure’ in the restoration industry
‘When he was attacked I know the Dot was in bed because she fell and broke her hip and was pretty much disabled after that so she had carers who used to go into the house every day.’
One local resident said Walpole, who is believed to have long term mental health issues, would often turn up at The Rule and Compass pub in Bulkington – where his granddad was a regular – and get him to buy him drinks.
Jurors were told how he spent two hours in the pub before walking to his grandparents’ home and carrying out the fatal attack on Mr Brown.
Walpole turned up ‘intoxicated and angry’, and looking for cash, prosecutor Lynette McClement told a pre-trial hearing.
Witnesses told the Mail that Walpole was heard by neighbours banging on the door of his grandparent’s home on the evening of November 23 last year, yelling: ‘If you don’t open this door, I’m going to f****** kick it in.’
It is suspected that a terrified Mr Brown let his grandson into his home and was hit around the back of the head as he turned to find some money.
Ms McClement said Walpole ‘struck his grandfather to the head area’ and Mr Brown then stumbled through to his wife ‘showing visible signs of injury’.
When paramedics arrived, they found him ‘distressed and deteriorating’.
Brazenly, Walpole then marched down to Bulkington Working Men’s Club – where Mr Brown was also well-known.
Walpole, of Bulkington, boasted about what he had done, telling regulars that he had ‘lamped’ his grandfather and describing him as an ‘old b******’.
Jakob Walpole is seen on CCTV approaching John Brown’s bungalow shortly befoe he then ‘set about’ his grandfather inside
Drunken Wallpole ‘ignored’ Mr Hopson’s pleas to moderate his language and continued to badger the drinker.
Matters came to a head when Walpole took the victim’s seat and then smashed a pint glass over the back of his head after being told to move.
A barman was then punched in the face as he frogmarched Walpole out of the club.
Earlier that evening, Walpole had been seen on CCTV footage arriving at Mr Brown’s bungalow, before going inside and attacking the pensioner.
He started drinking after buying a bottle of vodka before 9am that morning from his local Spar in the village, and also attended a Coventry City football match that lunchtime before visiting local pubs in the run-up to the spree of violence.
The landlady of the Rule and Compass pub, who gave her name only as Florence, told the Mail she had seen Walpole in the bar on the night his grandfather was attacked.
‘He came in and someone bought him a pint and then he left about 8ish.
‘People didn’t talk to him because they just didn’t like him.
‘He could be a nasty piece of work. No-one knows why, you just knew not to say too much to him because he could just turn after a drink.’
She said Walpole had left before returning to her pub around 9pm and was asking regulars for a cigarette.
‘I just told him I was closing up and that no-one smoked. He never mentioned anything about John but the next thing we heard he’d been arrested by the police at (his flat) in School Road.’
Instead of a quiet retirement after a life well-lived, Mr Brown was put into an induced coma in hospital and never regained consciousness.
The killing of Mr Brown rocked Bulkington, where he had been a well-known and much-loved figure, while his violent grandson had notoriety in equal measure locally.
One local resident said: ‘Everyone in the village is really angry about what’s happened. Jakob hadn’t long come out of prison…he was always angry and threatening.’
For Mr Darlaston, the loss of his best friend in a manner so cruel has been devastating.
‘I just wish I’d been there to try and help John’, he said. ‘I can’t bear to think about what happened.’
‘I’m still in shock. It actually makes me feel more angry at the moment than sad to think of the way he died.
‘We’d done so much together, been on holidays all over the place and just enjoyed each other’s company. He was a such a lovely man who was loved and respected by everyone who knew him
‘To think of how he died, it’s just awful. I’d like to think he didn’t know anything about it after he was hit.
‘I went to see him in hospital a couple of days after the attack.
‘I wanted to go alone so I could talk to him, even though he wasn’t conscious.
‘I sat close to his ear and talked to him. They say hearing is last thing to go, so I just hoped he could hear me.
‘I will never be able to forget the state he was in. It was shocking. The bruising across the whole one side of his head went down to the tip of his chin. Horrific red and purple bruising.’
