DRUGS AND BEER 'FUELLED KILLING'

Coroner In Hedge Row Shooting Blames Cannabis

A daily cocktail of cannabis and alcohol was blamed by a coroner in Lincoln
yesterday for a decision by a "drugged and drunken" plumber to shoot his
neighbour dead because of a privet hedge.

Daily consumption of beer and spirits and up to five cannabis joints a day
tipped a long-standing quarrel into a fist fight and then murder, an
inquest at Lincoln crown court was told.

The jury found that Robert Dickenson, 52, had unlawfully killed his
neighbour, George Wilson, 66, and then committed suicide by hanging himself
in Lincoln prison a week later. The jury also blamed neglect in the prison
for contributing to Dickenson's suicide.

Cannabis is due to be downgraded from a class B to a class C drug in two
weeks, remaining illegal but likely to see "softly softly" policing of
small amounts for private use.

Sir John Stevens, the Metropolitan police commissioner, said yesterday that
there was "widespread confusion" over the drug's status now.

The inquest was told cannabis contributed to Dickenson's increasingly
violent obsession with Wilson, a mechanical engineer, who had grown a
straggly, knee-high hedge as a border between their front gardens on a
housing estate in Lincoln. Shouting matches, swearing and minor fist fights
ended in Dickenson taking an electric trimmer to the hedge on June 13 last
year.

A fight followed and Dickenson, left with a broken arm, limped home, got
out his illegal revolver and shot Wilson four times as a neighbour tried in
vain to push him to safety.

Police found the killer drunk on his kitchen floor. He had cannabis plants
in his attic.

Roger Atkinson, the coroner, told jurors before they retired to consider
their verdict: "There are people who suggest cannabis is a harmless drug.
That is not the case. It is a drug which has an effect on the brain and it
certainly had an effect on Robert Dickenson, for the worse. He was addicted
to it. This is undoubtedly the worst case I have come across of somebody
under its influence. I want to stress, cannabis is not a harmless drug and
this case demonstrates how devastating its effects can be."

Mr Atkinson's warning was echoed after the case by the head of the police
inquiry, Detective Inspector Peter Bray, who said: "There is an awful lot
said about cannabis, but it does nobody any good to use it and it can lead
to these sorts of things. From the postmortem examination, Mr Dickenson had
smoked cannabis and had consumed a considerable amount of alcohol. That
must be a contributory factor which led to the death of Mr Wilson.

"It is obviously a sad occasion when a man is shot dead over a trivial
affair over the size and cutting down of a hedge. And ultimately it led to
the death of two men."

The inquest heard that Wilson died from a bullet wound to the head.

Dickenson hanged himself in the health centre of Lincoln jail, using a
medical sling. Mr Atkinson said that there had been criticism of the way he
had been supervised in prison.

There had been confusion over how frequently he should have been monitored
after an assessment that he was a suicide risk. The jury's findings will be
passed to the prison authorities.

Mr Atkinson and the police emphasised that accusations of paedophilia made
against Wilson by Dickenson were unjustified and part of the hedge vendetta.