A grandad who killed his daughter’s ex-partner over a custody dispute said “sometimes you have to do what you have to do” when he was arrested by police.
Widower Stephen Alderton, 67, killed his daughter’s ex and his father following a heated custody battle involving his grandson.
Peter Gair, prosecuting, said that the former chartered quantity surveyor killed the two men with his Beretta shotgun on March 29 this year, two days after a family court hearing.
Alderton pleaded guilty to the murders of Joshua Dunmore, 32, and his 57-year-old father Gary Dunmore, meaning a trial was avoided.
Joshua and Gary Dunmore were found dead at their homes in villages six miles apart in Cambridgeshire. Joshua’s home is in Bluntisham and his father’s in Sutton.
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Alderton was widowed a year before and was forced to sell his home and take up residence in a in a motorhome on a site in Willingham.
The court heard that Alderton has said in previous text messages that he would “override any court decision” regarding the custody dispute and that there would always be a “plan B.”
Police tracked Alderton and arrested him on the M5 near Worcester at about 1.30am on March 30 following the discovery of the bodies.
Alderton reportedly said to police when he was captured: “Sometimes you have to do what you have to do even if it’s wrong in the eyes of the law.”
Judge Mark Bishop described the murders as an “execution” and said: “You took the decision to take the law into your own hands and end the lives of two innocent men.”
The prosecution said: “It’s clear that the events were triggered by an ongoing family court case between this defendant’s daughter Samantha Stephen, nee Alderton, and her former partner Joshua Dunmore.
“This concerned a request to move their seven-year-old child from the jurisdiction of the court by emigrating to the USA.”
The defendant wrote in a letter: “I’m not the person that this conflict and the family courts have driven me to become.
“I’ve never been a violent person, I do not have a criminal record.
“I’ve been a respectable, law-abiding citizen all my life. What happened to me on March 29 I do not know.”
Alderton was sentenced to life in prison for the killings with a minimum term of 25 years.
