Two brothers charged with murdering a pensioner in a row over a robbery at a cannabis factory pleaded not guilty at the Old Bailey today, after their trial was delayed due to the suicide of a third brother in prison.

Jason Lewin, 34, of Glenthorpe Road, Morden, and his half-brother Stuart Palmer, 29, of Kew Bridge Road, Brentford, both denied the murder of 75-year-old Peter Lee, pictured below, on June 2, 2015.

Wandsworth Times:

Mr Lee died after being run over by a car in front of his Tooting home.

The driver of the car, Jonathan Palmer, 30, of Green Wrythe Lane, Carshalton, was due to stand trial alongside his brothers, but took his own life in Wandsworth prison in November last year shortly before the trial was due to begin.

He had previously pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.

Wandsworth Times:

Wandsworth Prison, where Jonathan Palmer "took his own life"

Prosecutor Alan Kent told the jury today (May 16) this is an “unusual case” and accused the late Jonathan Palmer of “deliberately” driving his car into Mr Lee and killing him.

He explained the series of events that led to Mr Lee’s death began in July 2013, when police found Lewin injured in the street in Sutton after three men broke into his cannabis factory, beat him up and stole a large amount of cannabis believed to be worth £14,000.

Lewin pleaded guilty to cultivating cannabis and was sent to prison for two years, and Mr Kent alleged that following his release Lewin was intent on “restitution or revenge, or even both” on the man he and his brothers believed to be responsible – Robert Palmer, the father of Jonathan and Stuart Palmer.

Mr Kent said that on May 30, 2015, Lewin and Jonathan Palmer attempted to break into a flat in Farnham Court, Cheam, armed with a knife and demanding £2,000 from a man associated with one of the occupants, but despite damaging the door were unable to gain entry.

On June 1, 2015, Lewin, Stuart Palmer and Jonathan Palmer drove to the home of their former stepmother, who had previously been married to Robert Palmer, after hearing his car had been spotted outside the house in Lessingham Avenue, Tooting.

Mr Kent said Lewin and Jonathan Palmer tried to enter the house armed with a knife and an iron bat and making threats to kill, while Stuart Palmer mainly stayed in the car. Once again, they failed to gain access to the house, and it later transpired Robert Palmer was not in the country, but was in Thailand.

Later that same day, the three brothers drove to the home Mr Lee shared with his two sons, Danny and Terry Lee, in Welham Road, Tooting.

Mr Kent said: “One of the defendants, it may have been Jonathan Palmer, was heard to say before they arrived ‘let’s go and have a cup of tea with Peter’.

“The Crown’s case is that tea was the last thing on their minds. What was on their minds was getting to the bottom of who was responsible for stealing all of the cannabis and therefore all of the money.”

It is alleged the men broke into the house armed with knives. Although Mr Lee was at a dentist appointment and not in his house at the time, his sons began to fight with the defendants in a brawl which moved through the kitchen and out into the garden, and included Lewin being held under the water of a garden pond.

Mr Kent said: “Peter Lee returned. We know he was out in in the street when Jonathan Palmer left the premises to return to the car.

“Having got in the car, he drove quite deliberately through the fence of the house and into the garden. He reversed out and drove deliberately, the prosecution say, at and into Peter Lee and killed him.”

Wandsworth Times:

Forensics spent hours in Welham Road investigating Mr Lee's death

He added: “What the prosecution say is that the three of them acting together embarked on a joint enterprise to go into that house armed with weapons and inflict serious bodily harm on the occupants.

“Serious bodily harm was inflicted on the occupant by one of them, not by the knife he had taken in with them but by the use of the car.

“The three of them, Jason Lewin, Stuart Palmer and Jonathan Palmer, were all in it together.”

Lewin faces two charges of attempted aggravated burglary with intent to cause GBH while in possession of a weapon and one count of affray.

Lewin and Stuart Palmer are charged together on one count of aggravated burglary and one count of murder.

They have pleaded not guilty to all the charges against them.

The trial continues.