John Henry Sayers has vowed to get on with his life and keep his family safe after being cleared of attacking an arsonist who targeted his home. The dad-of-six returned to Newcastle last night after a jury in London found him and his son, John Henry Sayers Junior, not guilty of causing grievous bodily harm to William Patterson, who drove a Range Rover into his Byker home and set it alight.
Relief and Determination After Acquittal
The father and son have been on remand since the incident in February last year, with Sayers senior being held in some of the country's highest security prisons. Now, in an exclusive interview with ChronicleLive, Sayers has told of his relief to be home and determination to keep his family safe from those who target them.
The 62-year-old said: "It will never be over, but how can you give in. I'm just going to get on with life. They are not going to detract from what we have got to do as a family. It's onwards and upwards now. It's beautiful to be home. I love this city." He added: "We don't worry about it, we just live our life, if they attack us we will defend ourselves within the law."
Background of Attacks by Organised Crime Group
Jurors at the Old Bailey, in London, heard how the Sayers family had been repeatedly attacked by the Freeman organised crime group for three years before the incident involving Patterson in February last year. Sayers told ChronicleLive that he initially told police he would not react and would let officers deal with it.
"The police implored us to let them deal with it. So I said; 'you go on then, that's your job'. We just sat back. It is hard not to retaliate. You are between a rock and a hard place."
The court also heard that Sayers had been warned by police that there was a genuine threat to his life and he had been handed an Osman warning, a formal notification issued by police when there is intelligence someone's life is in danger. Sayers said he was initially unfazed by the threats: "I have had that many Osman warnings they mean nothing to us. We have all got to die one day."
The Night of the Attack
In February last year, Sayers says he was forced to fight back after his home was targeted once again while his young teenage daughter Ava was inside. Sayers felt his home shake as a Range Rover was reversed into Lou's Diner, which is beneath his flat, the court was told. John Henry Sr picked up a machete and went outside, followed by 29-year-old John Henry junior, who picked up a metal pole. As they came out of a door at the side and round to the front, they saw Patterson torching the Range Rover, which had a container of fuel inside it and burst into flames.
CCTV played in court captured Sayers appearing to swing his machete twice before getting inside the burning vehicle to move it away from the property, suffering burns in the process. Meanwhile, his son was hitting Patterson with the pole. When police arrived, Sayers, who was still holding the machete, was tasered and arrested.
Sayers told ChronicleLive he acted instinctively when he realised his children were in serious danger: "I was just upstairs sorting Ava's school uniform, then I felt a bang and I knew straight away what it was so we just started running downstairs. I didn't even know I had picked the machete up. I just thought; 'I have got to go outside, I need something to protect myself with.' We retaliated in self-defence. I don't know what made me do it, I just knew that had to be done. Ava is there and that had to be done. Most parents would do the same. I couldn't not react. I had to save the children who were upstairs."
"There's no time to be scared. I don't think I realised what was happening until after I had been tasered. Thankfully Ava didn't realise what was happening."
Previous Criminal History
Sayers has spent long periods of his life behind bars. In 1990, he was sentenced to 15 years behind bars for masterminding a violent £350,000 wages robbery at Pritchard’s security firm in Gateshead. In 2002, he was cleared of being behind the murder of Freddie Knights, who was gunned down on his mother’s doorstep in Longbenton.
He was later accused of being the mastermind behind one of the most shocking crimes to hit Tyneside in recent years when in the summer of 2015 a doorman at Newcastle's Tup Tup Palace nightclub was shot in the arm in a mysterious drive-by gun attack. Sayers was found not guilty of conspiracy to murder but convicted of perverting the course of justice, along with convicted murderer Michael McDougall, in relation to a false confession McDougall made to the shooting from jail. Sayers was jailed for three-and-a-half years.
Time on Remand and Future Plans
Sayers was held at HMP Frankland in County Durham and then HMP Belmarsh as he stood trial for the attack on Patterson. He said he spent every moment behind bars worrying about his family at home and that prison life had changed a lot since his previous spells behind bars. "It was different. The prison system has changed. It was very different from last time," he said. "Every minute of every day I was worried about my family outside. You feel powerless when you are on remand. That's 18 months of my life gone. You don't get that back."
After around four hours of deliberations, jurors at the Old Bailey unanimously found Sayers and his son not guilty of causing GBH with intent and the lesser alternative of causing GBH. As he thanked the jury, Sayers told ChronicleLive he was always confident he would be cleared: "I never thought I would be convicted. I know this country is a bit woke, but there's a lot more sensible people than there are woke people, thank the Lord. We are so grateful to the London jurors for actually seeing common sense. Yes I hit him, but I only hit him to stop him doing what he was doing and so did John. We didn't want to cause him harm."
Sayers said he and his son are now focused on rebuilding their lives in Newcastle and resurrecting their businesses that were damaged in the attacks. He added: "My kids are different to me. I grew up in a different era. My outlook on life is different to theirs. I have made sure they have stayed out of trouble. They just get on with it." Patterson, who was not a witness in the trial, later pleaded guilty, along with others, to arson being reckless as to whether life was endangered and was jailed.
