A pair of half-brothers who stabbed a love rival on the eve of Valentine’s Day have been jailed for life.
Mark Meadows, 25 now but 24-years-old at the time of Keith Green’s murder and of Rees Court, Banbury, will be almost 50 by the time he is released from prison – after Judge Ian Pringle KC imposed a 23 year tariff on his life sentence.
His half-brother, Travis Gorton, now 20, of Well Bank, Hook Norton, was ordered to serve the next 17 years in jail.
Meadows’ older lover, Louise Grieve, 38, of Howard Road, Banbury, and the partner of victim Mr Green, was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment for manslaughter.
Sentencing, Judge Pringle told Grieve: “There will be some who listened to this trial as it proceeded last autumn who may have concluded that it was your behaviour, Louise Grieve, for the seven or eight months before Keith Green was murdered which led to the circumstances in which he was attacked and killed.
"It was you who sent amorous messages to both Mark Meadows and Keith Green and encouraged them both to continue to show you love and affection.
"It was you who was content for your partner to continue to be at home near his children, yet you who also wished to continue to see your lover Mark Meadows as and when you wanted.
"In short, all that mattered was what suited you."
He said he agreed with prosecutor Vanessa Marshall KC, who when she cross-examined Grieve during the trial, suggested the woman had done nothing to resolve the ‘tense’ situation between rivals Meadows and Mr Green ‘because you really rather liked the situation where the two men in your life were vying for your attention, love and affection’.
“In the way you behaved you were utterly and staggeringly selfish,” he said.
Love triangle
During the trial, the jury heard that Meadows and Grieve began their affair in 2021. That summer, they were in Leeds together when Meadows paid almost £60 for two knives from a shop called Fantasia. One was for him while another, a blue knife, was for his mistress. Both knives were used in the murder six months later.
The relationship continued on-and-off into the autumn. In September, Mr Green caught Meadows in the Howard Road home he shared with Grieve and attacked him.
Mr Green moved out but, by Christmas, had returned to the terraced house – after, it was claimed, Grieve had begged him to come back.
She continued to meet Meadows and send him loving messages. They included one in which she used his nickname – given as he had long hair and a beard. “We need Jesus so much in our lives. I love you immensely,” she wrote.
Cross-examined by Vanessa Marshall KC, for the Crown, Grieve denied ‘manipulating everyone.'
“Whereas you were not the one that physically stuck the knives into your partner, you were on the sideline throughout – encouraging Mark to get rid of Keith, weren’t you?” the barrister pressed.
“No, not the case,” Grieve replied.
Ms Marshall alleged: “You manipulated everyone.”
Grieve hit back: “I must be a genius if I can do that.”
Meanwhile, Meadows, a delivery driver for Amazon, was bemoaning his romantic difficulties with Louise Grieve in messages with half-brother Gorton.
“Can’t walk away. I love her too much and even if I did it still wouldn’t be the end of it,” he told his brother.
Computer records showed that he had made attempts to search the internet for how to buy a handgun on the dark web.
Murder
The murder, on February 13, followed a night spent at bingo at the Pepper Pot pub around the corner from the Howard Road home. Grieve, Meadows and Gorton could all be seen drinking at the pub.
They left the pub car park in Meadows’ van shortly after 11pm. The journey to Howard Road took barely two minutes.
Grieve was said to have gone into the house first. She asked Kieron White, a friend of her son Callum Johnson’s who was there to play video games, where Keith was.
A side gate was opened, through which Meadows and Gorton got into the back garden.
The prosecution said that the brothers had lain in wait for Mr Green, who was sleeping in the shed, to return to the outbuilding. The CCTV camera was turned off at 11.08pm, with a footprint near the video system operating box pointing to Meadows being the culprit.
It was outside this shed that Mr Green was stabbed, after he returned from taking a shower inside the house.
About ’20 to 30 minutes’ after Mr Green’s partner, Louise Grieve, returned to the house – drunk – after 11pm, eyewitness Kieron White said the back door was ‘flung open’ and he saw Meadows and Gorton ‘run through’ the kitchen and ‘into the hallway.'
Meadows was wearing dark clothing, he said. There appeared to be bloodstaining on the shin of his left trouser leg and had a sheathed knife hanging from his belt.
“All they did was pop their heads round the corner and said he was dealt with, then as soon as they said that they was out the door,” he said.
A tracker in the van showed the ignition was turned on at 11.26pm. Meadows started driving south then retraced his journey back up Howard Road and the engine was turned off. Ms Marshall KC suggested this was to look for ‘something that they had lost,' noting that Meadows’ phone was left at the scene of the stabbing.
Meanwhile, Mr Green’s body was discovered in the back garden. He had been stabbed at least eight times and died at the scene.
A 999 call from Meadows’ former colleague Ryan Cope put the police on to Mark Meadows and Travis Gorton.
“I know this has been planned for a while,” he told the operator. “They tried to rope me into doing something and helping them out but I said no.”
Mr Cope was said to have spoken to Gorton at 11.50pm, after learning of Mr Green’s death shortly before from Grieve’s older daughter. Gorton allegedly told Mr Cope ‘we stabbed him.'
“It became a bit of a brawl, so I don’t know if it was me or Mark or the both of us, but there were multiple stabs,” he was said to have told Mr Cope.
At Meadows’ home, police found one of the knives and bloodstained clothes hidden beside a speaker beside the bearded man’s bed. The other knife was found in a drain near Meadows' van.
The half-brothers were arrested by armed police in the early hours of February 14, around an hour and a half after the murder.
Grieve was not arrested until March, after police analysed phone messages and calls between the killers.
Impact
On Friday, the court heard about the devastating impact Mr Green's murder has had on his loved ones.
The victim's mother Jane Mason said in a statement read to the court by prosecutor Matthew Walsh: "It's so hard to put into words how losing my son Keith in such a horrific way has affected me, his family and friends.
"When I first got the call that my son Keith had been stabbed I thought he would be okay. On realising that he had been murderered, I just felt completely numb."
She added: "For the first 14 weeks I couldn't function and the feeling of numbness just wouldn't stop.
"I didn't leave my house for five weeks, just trying to make sense of it all, just asking myself 'why.'
"When you have a child, you can never believe someone would do this.
"I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat, my mental health has really suffered and I've had to take medication daily just to get me through each day.
"As time passes, this doesn't get any better.
"I struggle with the thought I will never get to speak to Keith again."
Mitigation
Andrew Selby KC, for Meadows, told Oxford Crown Court on Friday: “He is now 25 years of age. He has three young children and he has gone from zero convictions to being convicted of the most serious crime in the blink of an eye.”
Christopher Donnellan KC, representing Gorton, said the last part of a letter his client had written to the judge was actually addressed to the victim’s family.
“[It] is an acknowledgement of his wrongdoing and the pain and hurt to the family of the deceased,” the barrister said. He had got involved out of a sense of loyalty towards his brother.
Adrian Amer, for Grieve, summarised his client’s conversation with the probation officer who wrote the pre-sentence report.
"Ms Grieve says she deeply regrets forming a relationship with Mr Meadows, allowing him into her home and letting him become involved with her children," Mr Amer said.
"She also states that she feels very guilty about treating Mr Green so badly in the course of their relationship.
"She asserts that she feels very remorseful that because of her involvement with Mr Meadows her children have been removed from her."
A fourth defendant, a youth, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, was convicted of manslaughter last December. She will be sentenced on January 20. She was not in court this morning.
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This story was written by Tom Seaward. He joined the team in 2021 as Oxfordshire's court and crime reporter.
To get in touch with him email: Tom.Seaward@newsquest.co.uk
Follow him on Twitter: @t_seaward
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