MARK Roberts and David Garland have been convicted of murdering Yeovil man Michael Wheeler – as they wrongly believed he was a paedophile.

Mr Wheeler’s body was found in a derelict caravan in Yarlington in September last year, a month after he went missing.

On Thursday (June 5), after a trial lasting more than five weeks, a jury at Bristol Crown Court found Roberts and Garland guilty of murder and conspiracy to murder.

Garland had previously admitted preventing the lawful and decent burial of the body of Michael Wheeler.

Three other men; Jack Rance, Angus Warner, and Reuben Clare, were cleared of all charges against them.

The court was told 37-year-old Mr Wheeler was friends with all five men, but owed £100 to Roberts.

Michael Wheeler. Picture: Avon and Somerset Police

Their relationship soured when the others found an online news report about a man – also called Michael Wheeler – who was jailed in 2003 after admitting grooming and sexually abusing two 13-year-old girls.

However, prosecuting counsel, David Elias KC, made it clear to the court that the murdered man was not the same person, and had no convictions for child sexual offences.

Mr Wheeler was attacked at Roberts’ flat in Juniper Close, Yeovil, in the early hours of August 24 last year, suffering multiple injuries, including 11 skull and facial fractures, and his body was hidden.

Around three weeks after Mr Wheeler’s death, police received information that he had come to serious harm and began an investigation.

They found no proof of his being alive after August 24, with one of the last sightings of him being on CCTV at a petrol station just a few hours before his death.

Officers began searches of several addresses and open spaces, before finding his remains in the caravan on farmland in Yarlington on September 25.

Detective Superintendent Lorett Spierenburg led the Major Crime Investigation Team enquiry into the disappearance and murder of Mr Wheeler.

Michael Wheeler’s remains were found in a derelict caravan in Yarlington. Picture: Avon & Somerset Police

D/Supt Spierenburg said: “Michael Wheeler was brutally murdered by people he had considered as friends. He was killed over a £100 debt and because they wrongly decided he had been jailed for child sex offences in 2003, when he would have been just 16 years old.

“The defendants gave Michael no opportunity to tell them they were wrong. Instead, they took the life of a man whose last words to his ex-wife were of love for her and their daughter.”

When Mr Wheeler disappeared, his mother was suffering from a terminal illness and spent her last months under the shadow of his untimely death and passed away before the case came to court.

He leaves a sister, ex-wife and young daughter.

Roberts, 39, of Juniper Close, and Garland, 40, of no fixed abode, were both remanded in custody pending a sentencing hearing, expected to be on June 13.

Rance, 28, of no fixed abode, Clare, 19, of Yeovil, and Warner, 33, of Crewkerne, were all acquitted.