Two convicted of Yeovil man’s murder

Posted on 6 June 2025, at 16:19 in In Court

black and white stock image of a jail cell being locked

Two men have been convicted of the murder of a man they mistakenly believed to be a convicted paedophile.

After a trial lasting more than five weeks, on Thursday 5 June a jury at Bristol Crown Court found Mark Roberts and David Garland were each guilty of both the murder of and conspiracy to cause GBH with intent to Michael Wheeler.

David Garland had previously admitted preventing the lawful and decent burial of the body of Michael Wheeler.

David Garland, left, a white man with close-cropped dark hair and a beard alongside Mark Roberts, right, another white man with longer dark hair and a stubbly goatee beard. — Left, David Garland and right, Mark Roberts.

Three other men, Jack Rance, Angus Warner, and Reuben Clare, were cleared of all charges against them.

The court heard that Michael Wheeler, 37, from Yeovil, was friends with all five men, but owed £100 to Roberts.

Their relationship soured when the others found an online news report about a man – also called Michael Wheeler – who was jailed in 2003 after admitting grooming and sexually abusing two 13-year-old girls.

Prosecuting counsel, David Elias, KC, made it clear to the court that the murdered man was not the same person, and had no convictions for child sexual offences.

A uniformed PCSO sitting in a small tent outside a block of flats. — A PCSO outside the block of flats in Juniper Close, the scene of the crime.

Michael Wheeler was attacked at Roberts’ flat in Juniper Close, Yeovil in the early hours of 24 August 2024.

He suffered multiple injuries, including 11 skull and facial fractures, and his body was hidden.

A blurry CCTV image showing Mark Roberts, wearing a grey hoody, standing by a car at a petrol pump. — The last confirmed sighting of Michael Wheeler alive.

About three weeks after Mr Wheeler’s death, police received information that he had come to serious harm and began an investigation. They found no proof of his being alive after 24 August 2024. One of the last sightings of him was on CCTV at a petrol station just a few hours before his death.

Officers began searches of several addresses and open spaces, before finding Michael Wheeler’s remains in a derelict caravan on farmland in Yarlington on Wednesday 25 September.

A derelict caravan among debris in an open-sided barn. — The caravan where police found Michael Wheeler’s remains.

Detective Superintendent Lorett Spierenburg led the Major Crime Investigation Team enquiry into the disappearance and murder of Mr Wheeler.

D/Supt Spierenburg said: “Michael Wheeler was brutally murdered by people he had considered as friends. He was killed over a £100 debt and because they wrongly decided he had been jailed for child sex offences in 2003, when he would have been just 16 years old.

“The defendants gave Michael no opportunity to tell them they were wrong. Instead, they took the life of a man whose last words to his ex-wife were of love for her and their daughter.”

Michael Wheeler looking at the camera. He's a white man in his thirties with greying hair and a beard who is wearing glasses and a grey T-shirt. — Michael Wheeler, deceased.

When Mr Wheeler disappeared, his mother was suffering from a terminal illness. She spent her last months under the shadow of his untimely death and passed away before the case came to court. He leaves a sister, ex-wife and young daughter.

Roberts, 39, of Juniper Close, and Garland, 40, of no fixed abode, were both remanded in custody pending a sentencing hearing, expected to be Friday 13 June.

Rance, 28, of no fixed abode, Clare, 19, of Yeovil, and Warner, 33, of Crewkerne, were all acquitted.