EXCLUSIVE Father who killed pregnant wife and hid body for over 20 years tried to 'literally get away with murder' by telling his son to dig her up

Daily Mail​

2 days ago

A father who killed his pregnant wife and hid her body for over 20 years tried to 'literally get away with murder' by telling his son to dig up her body, a judge said today.
Andrew Griggs, 62, hatched a plot to get out of jail after being sentenced to life for the murder of his missing wife Debbie, 34, telling their son Jake to dig up her body and post a sample of her hair from abroad to convince police she was still alive.
In an extraordinary case, Jake, 25, failed to carry out the instructions, but for years he kept the truth from police and his siblings, who continued to believe their mother was still alive and their father was innocent.
Today a judge said the 'conniving, devious and narcissistic' father had 'quite literally tried to get away with murder'.
Sentencing Griggs to three years for perverting the course of justice, which he will serve in addition to the 20-year minimum term for her murder, Judge Simon James told the killer: 'You told lie after lie to your family, the police and ultimately the jury.'
The sentence has angered Debbie's family who believe that Jake should also have been prosecuted for perverting the course of justice.
Debbie's parents Patricia and Brian died not knowing what happened to her, even though their grandson knew the truth by the time of Brian's death in 2021.
The victim's brother Wayne Cameron said it was a 'disgrace' that Griggs had been allowed to watch the sentencing on a videolink from prison, where the killer was seen repressing a smile as he was told that he would only serve one and a half years extra jail time.
'It's a disgrace. The sentence is shocking,' Mr Cameron said.
'He should have been dragged to the dock in person.
'We live in hope he will never be released.
'He has not been properly punished.'
Debbie was three months pregnant when she disappeared from her home in Deal, Kent in the middle of the night on May 5, 1999.
Griggs blamed post-natal depression, claiming the auxiliary nurse was a bad mother who walked out on him and their children, Jeremy, then six, Jake, four and Luke, 18 months, even though she was not suffering from the condition at the time.
Griggs convinced his sons that he had nothing to do with her disappearance, moving them just a month later to a new home in Dorset with a promise of a fresh start.
Her body was found underneath a shed with concrete foundations
But in reality the controlling businessman had buried her body in the back garden of the new home where the children played.
In 2019 a police cold case review uncovered the truth that Griggs been having an affair with a 15-year-old girl and told friends he wished his wife was dead.
He was convicted of her murder and jailed for life.
But Griggs' sons and new wife, Deborah continued to believe in his innocence, campaigning for him to be freed as no body had been found.
Launching a Facebook campaign, his sons wrote: 'This page has been launched for the sole purpose of finding our mum, Debbie Elizabeth Griggs (Cameron) who we believe was not murdered by our father but is still alive.'
But in a cruel twist just days after being denied an appeal, Griggs contacted his son in November 2019 asking him to dig up her body and dupe police.
In an elaborate ploy, Griggs instructed his son to take a ferry to France before sending the hair sample as proof of life and a letter professing to be from Debbie claiming that she was living abroad and did not wish to be bothered.
Griggs pleaded with his son, telling him that if he really loved his father, he would dig up the body.
He denying killing his wife, claiming he had inexplicably come across her dead body in the garden and panicked, deciding to hide the corpse under a shed.
Jake removed the shed but refused to dig any further, keeping his father's secret until October 2022 when he blurted it out during a row with his girlfriend.
She persuaded him to go to police, who found Griggs had gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal the body, placing it in an airtight plastic water butt sealed with fibreglass, which was buried underneath the shed with a concrete foundation.
Despite the discovery of the body, Griggs's new wife Deborah refused to leave the property saying: 'I don't believe any of it.
'We've been together for 20 years and I've never had a sign of any suspicions or doubt about him.
'I've got no regrets about marrying him.'
Today Mr Cameron, told the Mail: 'Jake knew what had happened and he kept it from everyone.
'Police should 100 per cent charge Jake.
'His sons have always supported him. It's sick.
'He knew where she was buried for all that time.
'For us not to know caused so much heartache and pain. It made the whole situation even more horrific.
'He kept it a secret for three years. My mum and dad died in that time and they did not know.
'Debbie would be heartbroken by all of this.
'They are not brainwashed kids anymore, they're adults.
'Everyone has said 'oh good on Jake' for coming forward. They are not saying naughty Jake for keeping it a secret for three years.
'But here's the big kicker- my dad died, but Jake knew where his mum was for around 14 months.
'It's all so painful.'
The victim's aunt, Marjorie Dunne said Debbie's mother died heartbroken after spending her last years walking everywhere hoping to catch a sighting of her: 'Pat didn't just lose Debbie, she lost her three grandsons as well. He cut them off.
'That was awful for her. It made the pain so much worse. There's been so many unanswered questions.
'Pat died of a broken heart.'
Katie Samways from the Crown Prosecution Service said: 'This is one of the worst examples imaginable of perverting the course of justice.
'Now, more than 25 years after Debbie first disappeared, we hope that her family and friends can now finally put this chapter of their lives behind them, knowing Andrew Griggs has been fully held to account not just for Debbie's murder, but also for the lies he continually told in the intervening period.'