West Bromwich murder: father and daughter convicted over canal body disposal

John Anslow, 65, was found guilty of murdering Chereiss Bailey, whose body was dumped in a canal. His daughter Hayley-Marie Ferguson was convicted of assisting an offender.

Father convicted of murder after victim's body wheeled to West Bromwich canal

Google News UK — Crime (en) reports that a man and his daughter have been convicted following the murder of a woman whose body was concealed in a canal in West Bromwich.

Chereiss Bailey was discovered dead near a waterway off Ryders Green Road on 7 October last year. John Anslow, 65, of Stour Street, West Bromwich, had assaulted Bailey at his home before he and his daughter, Hayley-Marie Ferguson, 42, transported her body using his wheelchair and submerged it in the water with a washing line weighted down by paving slabs, West Midlands Police said.

Anslow denied murder but was found guilty following a three-week trial at Birmingham Crown Court. Ferguson was found guilty of assisting an offender and preventing a lawful and decent burial — a charge to which Anslow had already pleaded guilty. Both are due to be sentenced at a later date.

The victim

Bailey was last seen on the afternoon of 27 September. CCTV footage showed she had entered Anslow's home on Stour Street after the pair met on Great Bridge Street, police said. Her body was not found until 7 October.

Opening the prosecution case, Michael Duck KC told the court that Bailey was a vulnerable individual who lived alone in Tipton and had been leading "something of a chaotic lifestyle". She had occasionally worked as a sex worker in the area, Duck said.

While the precise sequence of events inside Anslow's property remained unclear, Duck said the evidence pointed to an attack in his bedroom. "During that attack she sustained a number of facial fractures, bruising to many parts of her body [and] was ultimately strangled and very likely bitten to intimate parts of her body," he told the court.

The cover-up

The morning after the assault, Anslow cancelled his scheduled community carers and contacted his daughter, police said. Ferguson travelled to her father's address by taxi carrying paving slabs, and told others she was helping him with his garden.

She returned in the early hours of 29 September. CCTV captured the pair moving Bailey's body in Anslow's distinctive wheelchair — which he used because of a disability — before dumping it in the stretch of canal known locally as "eight locks" off Ryders Green Road.

Family tribute

In a statement, Bailey's family described her as "a much-loved daughter, sister, mother, auntie, granddaughter and friend." They said she had "a huge personality, a beautiful heart and a way of making her presence known wherever she went."

The family added that "her little boy had been robbed of growing up with his mum beside him", but said they would ensure he grew up knowing "how much she adored him."

This article contains details that some readers may find distressing.

Source: Google News UK — Crime (en)