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Red Lodge woman on trial accused of plot to murder former partner




Ipswich Crown Court ANL-140617-141524001
Ipswich Crown Court ANL-140617-141524001

A woman from Red Lodge has today gone on trial accused of involvement in a conspiracy to murder her former partner.

Rebecca Deferia, 30, of Carnation Way, is alleged to have hatched the plot together with her father and a friend from Dorset.

Today (Wednesday) a jury at Ipswich Crown Court was told that Deferia has pleaded not guilty of conspiracy to murder Jonathan Catchpole between August 1, 2014 and August 5, 2015.

Prosecutor Andrew Jackson told the court that two years before Mr Catchpole was shot at his flat in Bury St Edmunds on August 4, 2015, the relationship he had with Deferia had ended ‘acrimoniously’.

Three men armed with a sawn-off shotgun had ‘stormed’ into Mr Catchpole’s home, overpowering him before he was shot in the chest.

Moments before the shooting took place, one of the men had told Mr Catchpole: “Rebecca wants you dead”, alleged Mr Jackson.

The jury heard claims that Andrew Seaton, Simon Webber and Frank Warren had been hired by Rebecca Deferia, her father Colin Deferia and family friend Paul Baker to carry out what was planned to have been a killing.

Mr Jackson said: “They hired those hit men to murder Jonathan Catchpole.”

The court was told that immediately after the shooting, the three ‘hit men’ had fled in a stolen car and later telephoned Baker to confirm that the contract had been carried out.

Despite serious shotgun injuries to his chest and having been left for dead, Mr Catchpole survived the shooting, said Mr Jackson.

Mr Catchpole had been at a loss to understand what had happened and why, the jury heard.

When his relationship with Rebecca Deferia ended, Mr Catchpole had found the locks on the home they shared had been changed denying him access and his mutilated clothes were dumped outside his workplace, alleged Mr Jackson.

It is alleged that Deferia and her father had approached Baker who then helped to organise the shooting.

Last year at the same court Colin Deferia, Baker, Webber Warren and Seaton were all found guilty of conspiracy to murder Mr Catchpole.