Ungrateful homwlesss man kills his helper

A homeless man has admitted murdering a woman he once called 'the mother he'd never had'

and her 13-year-old son when he turned on them after she tried to help him off the streets.

Aaron Barley, who was fed, helped with accommodation and even given a job after Tracey Wilkinson found him on the street, pleaded guilty to killing her and her son Pierce on the first day of his trial at Birmingham Crown Court.

Barley, 24, brutally stabbed Mrs Wilkinson, 50, and 13-year-old Pierce at the family's £440,000 home in Stourbridge, West Midlands, on March 30.

Husband Peter Wilkinson, 47, was also critically wounded in the attack but survived following life-saving surgery.


He managed to phone the emergency services after being stabbed six times and spent 11 days in hospital recovering from his wounds.

It emerged after the attack that the Wilkinsons had helped Barley off the streets around a year earlier - after Mrs Wilkinson saw him keeping warm in a cardboard box outside a Tesco store.

Barley, described as a 'chaotic' individual who was known to the police, was also given a job at one of Mr Wilkinson's businesses but left on amicable terms after starting to take drugs.

Barley, of no fixed address, stood with shoulders slumped as he admitted two counts of murder at Birmingham Crown Court today.

Mr Wilkinson only learned his only son was dead after waking from life-saving surgery and the couple's 18-year-old daughter, Lydia, feared she might lose her entire family after the attack on March 30.

Explaining how his wife met the homeless 24-year-old outside a supermarket in March last year, Mr Wilkinson said her efforts to help him were typical of her kind nature, which also saw her volunteer to help the elderly. MAY THEIR SOULS REST IN PEACE.