An on-the-run convict who brutally murdered a mother-of-six while she was walking her dog was jailed for 25 years today.

Roy Barclay, aged 56, received a life sentence after being found guilty by a jury for attacking Anita Rose in Brantham, Suffolk, in July of last year.

The assailant had been living ‘off-grid’ to evade being sent back to prison due to a prior assault on an elderly person when he came across the 57-year-old grandmother and her pet.

Barclay subjected her to ‘numerous kicks, stamps and blows’ in a ‘vicious and brutal’ onslaught while she was out with her spaniel, Bruce.

She was found by passers-by on a footpath beside a sewage works but died four days later.

Barclay, who had no permanent address, denied committing murder. However, a jury at Ipswich Crown Court took only two and a half hours to convict him of the crime after the trial.

In sentencing Barclay to life with a minimum term of 25 years, Judge Martyn Levett remarked that the ten-year sentence Barclay served for his previous ‘unprovoked attack’ should have given him ‘ample time’ to reform his behavior and control his ‘anger’.

He added: ‘You are, in my judgement, an unpredictable, dangerous man and someone who is prone to terrible outbursts of violence.’

During the court proceedings, Barclay, dressed in a light grey tracksuit and glasses, was accompanied by three security officers. He either looked straight ahead or at the ground as Anita Rose’s children shared their victim impact statements.

Jessica Cox, one of Ms. Rose’s daughters, recounted that her mother’s injuries were so severe that ‘the individual on the bed before me no longer resembled my mum’.

Describing Barclay actions as ‘horrific and evil’, she said: ‘It keeps me up at night and it replays through my mind every day.

‘I don’t know how somebody is supposed to rebuild their lives experiencing this…

‘I do not feel he has shown any remorse… I believe he has enjoyed what he has done.’

A son, Markeece Rose, said he was ‘emotionally broken’ from the ‘soul-destroying’ pain of the loss, adding: ‘I needed regular therapy just to function in daily life and even then I only feel like I’m surviving, not living.’

Another son, Warren Rose, described how his life was now consumed by ‘fear, grief and anxiety’ and he worried every time his partner walked their dog.

Ms Rose’s partner, Richard Jones, said in his statement that the loss of ‘my Anita’ had been hard to deal with as they had ‘planned to grow old together’.

‘Hearing what I have heard haunts me and continues to haunt me,’ he said.

Speaking outside court after the conviction last month, Jessica fought back tears as she called for ‘changes that need to be made within the probation services and the justice system’.

This was needed to ‘make sure that our communities are safe and that people are monitored, that criminals are taken back to prison when they break the terms of their probation’.

Barclay developed an obsession with the occult some years ago and was a follower of David Farrant, the President of the British Occult and Psychic Society, the Mail revealed after his conviction.

Farrant was best known for helping to spark panic in the 1970s about the sightings of alleged vampires in Highgate cemetery, north London.

Barclay was a keen amateur artist who drew cartoons satirising the rivalry between Farrant and self-proclaimed exorcist Sean Manchester, which once made tabloid headlines.

Opening the trial in June, prosecutor Christopher Paxton KC told jurors Ms Rose was violently attacked on July 24 last year.

Shortly before 6.25 that morning, she was subjected to a flurry of ‘kicks, stamps and blows being delivered to her face, head and body’. She died in Addenbrooke’s Hospital on July 28.

‘No eyewitnesses saw the incident’, Mr Paxton told jurors, adding: ‘You will hear that Roy Barclay had no fixed address and lived mostly in the countryside, wandering the fields and lanes, sleeping in various makeshift camps.

‘He lived off-grid because, for two years, Roy Barclay had been unlawfully at large.

‘He had been on the run trying to avoid the police and authorities to try and avoid being recalled back to prison.’

Jurors were told that Barclay had previously pleaded guilty, over a separate incident in 2015, to grievous bodily harm with intent over an attack on an 82-year-old man in Walton-on-the-Naze, Essex.

The pensioner, Leslie Gunfield, had told Barclay that he would inform security about him going through rubbish bins at a Co-op supermarket, the court heard.

Mr Gunfield was left with serious injuries to his head and required 10 titanium plates for fractures he suffered after being attacked.

He was found with a dog lead wrapped around his foot, which the prosecution said was similar to the way Ms Rose’s body was found, with a dog lead ‘tightly’ wrapped around her leg.

Mr Paxton told jurors that Mr Gunfield ‘was taken to the ground and attacked on the ground by Roy Barclay, just as Anita Rose was’.

‘Leslie Gunfield was struck repeatedly to the head, just as Anita Rose was,’ the prosecutor said.

‘In his mid-40s, he (Barclay) fractured nearly all of the bones of an 82-year-old’s face, having taken him to the ground in 2015.

‘Anybody that attacks an 82-year-old man in that way displays a ruthlessness and callousness that defies logic.’

Barclay was released from prison for the attack on Mr Gunfield in February 2020.

Mr Paxton said Barclay was a ‘dog lover’ who had volunteered at a dog charity while on probation, adding that a dog lead wrapped around a body could ‘almost be described as a signature’ of the ‘irrational and dangerous’ thug’s violent attacks.

Giving his closing speech, the prosecutor said: ‘Two very different worlds collided: Anita, partner to Richard, a mother and grandmother, out with the family dog Bruce, before she went off to work.

‘Her world collided with Roy Barclay’s world, a desperate man on the run from police for two years, having been in prison for beating Leslie Gunfield’s face to a pulp.

‘Roy Barclay took Anita Rose’s life in an explosion of violence. Blow after blow, stamp after stamp and kick after kick.

‘Roy Barclay’s determination to keep his liberty and save his skin is revealed in the brutality of the injuries he inflicted on Anita Rose.

‘Slight and slim Roy Barclay might seem, but his force, his brutality, is revealed in what he did to Leslie Gunfield and Anita Rose.’

Barclay did not give evidence at his trial.

Mr Paxton said Barclay had carried out online searches after Ms Rose was attacked which included ‘Can barbed wire be swabbed for DNA?’ and ‘How long does DNA last at a crime scene?’

The pdefendant had kept a ‘treasure trove’ of Ms Rose’s items including her jacket and phone.

Mr Paxton said Barclay’s walking boots, which ‘amounted to the murder weapon’, were found in one of the defendant’s camps.

Earlier in the case, jurors were told how ‘cunning’ convict Barclay tried to trick police into arresting an innocent man by leaving his victim’s phone in a public place.

The killer swiped Ms Rose’s mobile and distinctive pink jacket before then reading media reports on his phone detailing how both items were ‘key’ to the police investigation.

Mr Paxton described the report as ‘a signal to Roy Barclay that he had to get rid of the phone’.

Barclay attempted to dump the phone to ‘set a false trail for the police, throwing them off the scent’, the prosecutor added.

The 56-year-old was filmed by a CCTV camera three days after the attack on Ms Rose as he walked towards ‘a small seating area’ in Ipswich town centre with a rucksack on his back and a carrier bag in his left hand.

He was seen crossing the road towards the seating area in Upper Orwell Street and then walking back ‘after a short while’ with images showing he no longer had the bag.

Several minutes later, a couple named in court as Mr Ichim and Miss Baiculescu entered the same seating area, while CCTV showed Barclay seeming to ‘hang around walking up and down’.

Mr Paxton told the jury: ‘He was looking into the seating area. We say he is checking if someone has picked up Anita’s phone and making sure his phone drop has been successful.’

Mr Ichim and Miss Baiculescu were seen on CCTV emerging from the area a few minutes later and appeared to pass the phone ‘from one to the other’ as they walked away and turned it on.

Mr Paxton said: ‘The police were alerted to Anita’s phone being switched on for the first time since the morning of the attack and, as soon as it was, numerous police officers flooded the area.’

The ‘unsuspecting’ couple were found in the nearby iMobile phone and vape shop where they had paid for it to be factory reset as they were ‘looking to sell it’, he added.

Mr Ichim was arrested on suspicion of the attempted murder of Ms Rose – who died in hospital the following day – and treated as a suspect before being released without charge.

Mr Paxton described the dumping of the phone as an example of ‘Barclay’s cunning and his attempts to distort and throw the police off his track.’

He told the jury: ‘In some ways, it was clever as he must be to have evaded recall to prison for over two years.’

Barclay was eventually arrested by police at Ipswich Library on October 21 last year and charged with murder.

David Farrant’s widow, Della, told the Mail last month: ‘Wow, so awful how his life seems to have slid.

‘He had a good sense of humour back in the day and shrewd insight into people who were not very pleasant characters. So sad that he has become one himself.

‘David would be appalled. He only knew Roy as a satirical artist and cartoonist really.’