Coin collector ‘stabbed to death over Beatrix Potter 50p pieces’

A coin enthusiast stabbed a rival collector to death over his rare Beatrix Potter 50p pieces, a court has heard.

Gordon McGhee, 52, was found dead at his flat in Colchester, Essex, in August. He had 14 knife wounds to his face, neck and upper body.

Days later, Police arrested Danny Bostock, 33, who knew McGhee and “shared a passion for numismatics, the study of coins and currency”, reports The Times. The pair had been drinking together hours before the killing.

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Opening the trial at Ipswich Crown Court, prosecutor Andrew Jackson described the attack as “determined and brutal”. He claimed that Bostock had stabbed McGhee multiple times, before turning on a gas cooker and setting a towel on fire in a bid to create an explosion, “to destroy McGhee’s body and all traces of what he had done”.

The court heard that the knife used in the attack and most of McGhee’s coin collection, including some rare Beatrix Potter coins, have not been recovered.

Jackson told the jury: “It was in the early hours of Wednesday 22 August last year that this defendant Danny Bostock went to the home of Gordon McGhee.

“He went there to burgle McGhee’s home. He was disturbed during the course of the burglary by McGhee and so he murdered McGhee by stabbing him several times.”

Bostock allegedly wanted McGhee’s coins commemorating the author after swapping his own collection with other local enthusiasts hours earlier.

Jackson said: “After the murder, McGhee’s coin collection, the bulk of it, couldn’t be found. We say it was this defendant who took it.”

The court heard that on the evening of the murder, Bostock had been captured on CCTV wearing a distinctive pair of Lonsdale trainers that were “later forensically linked to blood at the flat”, reports The Sun.

Bostock’s DNA was also said to be on the lit towel, and McGhee’s blood was “found on the left pedal of Bostock’s GT Aggressor mountain bike”, reports Yahoo! News.

Bostock denies murder and attempted arson. The trial continues and is expected to last for three weeks.