the times | Tuesday May 17 2022 9
News
A loner who battered a police commu-
nity support officer to death as she
walked her dog is a “monster” who
intended to kill “many women”, her
family said yesterday after he was
found guilty of murder.
Callum Wheeler, 22, attacked Julia
James, 53, with a railway jack as she
walked her Jack Russell, Toby, in
woodland near her home in Snow-
down, Kent, on April 27 last year.
Her widower, Paul, said he had been
“in hell, in an emotional trauma” since
finding out that she had been killed at a
beauty spot where she used to take her
grandmother.
Wheeler, a “highly sexualised” rec-
luse, will be jailed for life after he was
convicted of murder by Canterbury
crown court yesterday.
Members of James’s family were
present throughout the six-day trial,
sometimes weeping as they sat through
graphic descriptions of her injuries,
bodycam footage of her body and
bizarre and aggressive behaviour from
the defendant.
After the verdict, Mr James, 58, said
his heart “broke in half” when he learnt
that his wife was dead. He said they had
been so in love that they would call each
other three or four times a day. “My
family and friends helped me to stay on
the level,” he said. “What that guy was
intending to do in my opinion, he was
going to hurt many, many women, do
lots of bad things.”
James’s daughter, Bethan Coles, who
works for Kent police, described
Wheeler as “a vile excuse for a human
being” and said his conviction was
important for the safety of women.
James joined Kent police in 2008 as a
crime reduction officer and was com-
mended for bravery before going on to
support victims of domestic abuse. She
and her husband came face to face with
Wheeler weeks before the murder
while walking in Ackholt Wood. Mr
James, a hypnotherapist, said his wife
had described her eventual killer as a
“really weird dude”.
He said: “I went to him and spoke to
him, and I asked him ‘everything
alright?’ He was so odd and he wouldn’t
engage me. So I stood my ground and
he walked around me.”
After that, the couple avoided the
route for several weeks until James felt
safe enough to go there alone again. Mr
James bought her an Apple smart-
watch, which would prove crucial in
solving the case. The device became a
silent witness to the murder, recording
the time and location with a massive
spike in her heart rate, from 97bpm to
145bpm, as she tried to escape. The
watch showed James’s pace increase
dramatically as she took a sudden
detour from her usual route.
Officers said it was the first time they
had known a smartwatch to play such a
key role in a murder investigation.
A family who came across James’s
dog wandering loose found her body
and called 999. Her phone, on which
she had sent her last message about five
minutes before she was murdered, was
ringing. A pathologist concluded that
she had tried to run away but fell after
either tripping in her wellington boots
or being struck by Wheeler.
He was arrested ten days after the
killing after Mr James helped police to
create an e-fit. Wheeler denied murder
but tried to plead guilty to manslaugh-
ter by diminished responsibility, des-
pite the charge not being on the indict-
ment. The jury was told that he was
spotted lurking near the police cordon
around the murder scene the day after
the murder. He was carrying whatblood was also discovered on his train-
ers. In police custody he remarked that
James had “deserved to die” for being a
“copper”.
James’s son, Patrick Davis, 24, said
they would remember the “amazinglife” his mother had and “not how it was
ended by that monster”.
Mr James revealed that he had a
bench built to put in the couple’s
favourite spot in the woodland, which is
known for an abundance of butterflies.police and prosecutors believe was the
murder weapon, wrapped in plastic
bags. The railway jack was found in his
room stained with James’s blood and
his DNA was discovered on one of her
boots, her jacket and her vest top. HerLoner found guilty of killing PCSO
KMG/SWNS; GARETH FULLER/PARecluse who
was fixated
on attacking
a woman
Behind the story
C
allum Wheeler
barricaded
himself in his
bedroom at his
father’s house
when officers arrived to
take him away (John
Simpson writes).
It was there, two hours
before Wheeler, right,
murdered Julia James, that
he googled the word “rape”.
Wheeler — who had a
middle-class upbringing in
Southwark, southeast
London — was a recluse
who had become fixated on
attacking a lone woman
after trawling the internet
for pornography.
His presence loomed
large over the villages of
northeast Kent in the tendays that it took detectives
to track him down after the
murder. Hundreds of
officers swarmed around
the streets of the former
mining village of Aylesham,
while women were warned
to avoid woodland.
It emerged that Wheeler
had been walking near the
scene of the murder,
carrying the bloodied
railway jack that he had
used to kill James.
Detective Superintendent
Gavin Moss of the Kent and
Essex crime directorate,
who led the investigation,
said: “I can never say what
was going on in his mind,
but the level of resources
used was justified
because we cannot
know that he
wouldn’t have
done it again.”
Wheeler
had never
shown signs
of violence
and had no
criminal
convictions.
He dropped out
of school at theage of 15, failing to finish
his GCSEs, and moved to
Aylesham from London to
live with his father about
two years before the
murder, after his parents
split up. He was
unemployed and was
described by Moss as “a
complete and utter loner”
whose life consisted of
watching television and
playing video games in his
bedroom.
In court he had to be
sedated after his behaviour
grew increasingly erratic.
He glared at his victim’s
family, spat on the dock,
unbuttoned his shirt and
made two-finger swearing
gestures at the judge
on the first day of
his trial.
His
barrister
said that
Wheeler,
who is
being held
at the
Broadmoor
high-
security
psychiatrichospital, was on the autistic
spectrum but the
prosecution did not accept
this. Psychiatric
assessments deemed him fit
to stand trial — despite his
behaviour after arrest,
which included exposing
himself to a female police
officer. While in custody he
had to be handcuffed to
stop him pleasuring
himself.
His mother Tracey King,
51, trained as a social
worker at London
Metropolitan University
before setting up a luxury
flat rental service for
tourists called The
Mulberry Guide.
His father John Wheeler,
69, bought the leasehold for
his house in Aylesham for
just under £100,000 in 2018.
He has worked in IT.
The couple had three
sons, of whom Callum was
the youngest. His eldest
brother, Joshua, is thought
to be a teacher.
Wheeler was said to have
had no friends, barely any
contacts in his mobile
phone and did not have arelationship with his
brothers. He had been
repeatedly spotted roaming
fields and woodland alone.
Ten days before he
murdered James, two
female police community
support officers (PCSOs)
had gone to his home in
response to a 999 call that
he made. Wheeler refused
to talk to them, laughing
and saying that they were
“not real police”.
He was arrested on May 7
last year after a picture was
circulated of him near the
crime scene. In his room,
officers found the murder
weapon and his laptop,
which showed visits to
three porn sites.
Wheeler had searched
“PCSO Julia James” on
Facebook and repeatedly
looked for news about her
killing. When he was
detained he demanded to
know who had “ratted”
on him.
However, he also told the
police: “Sometimes I do
things that I can’t control”
and spoke of his desire to
face a death sentence.Julia James’s watch
helped to snare the
‘monster’ who struck
as she walked her dog,
reports John Simpson
Julia James, a police community
support officer, was found dead in
woods. Patrick Davis, her son, and
Bethan Coles, her daughter, both
above; and Paul James, her
widower, below, were in court
when Callum Wheeler was
convicted of murdering her
with a railway jack, rightnnott
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