Court / Aren Pearson found guilty of murdering Claire Leveque in Sandness last year
AREN Pearson has been found guilty of murdering his former partner Claire Leveque during an attack on 11 February 2024 at his mother’s home in Sandness.
The 41-year-old had denied murdering Leveque, and repeatedly stabbing her on the head, neck and body, in a hot tub in the garage.
But jurors at Edinburgh High Court found Pearson guilty following a six-day trial in the capital.
Pearson, a Canadian citizen who moved to Shetland with 24-year-old Leveque to live with his mother, had tried to claim that the woman had stabbed herself in the hot tub after overhearing him tell her father he was sending her back to Canada.
His claims caused great emotional pain to members of Leveque’s family, who travelled from North America to hear harrowing evidence describing the full extent of her injuries.
Judge Lord Arthurson told Pearson that he is going to be jailed for life.
He will have to serve a minimum sentence of 25 years before being eligible for parole.
Defence solicitor advocate Iain Paterson KC told Lord Arthurson that there was nothing he could say by way of mitigation.
He added: “He has said to me during these proceedings that not a day goes by where he does not think about 11 February 2024 without sadness.”
He added: “We’ve had him psychiatrically examined and there’s nothing by way of mental disorder.”
Despite Pearson’s not guilty plea, during the trial jurors heard a 999 call Pearson’s mother made in the aftermath of Leveque’s death, in which Pearson told the operator: “My name is Aren Pearson. I’ve just killed my girlfriend in the hot tub in the garage.”
Pearson’s mother told the operator her son had been behaving “aggressively” and had turned “extremely violent” in the three weeks leading up to the incident.
She said: “I tried to get her [Leveque] out of the water. He’s done something really terrible.”
A doctor, who was working at the Gilbert Bain Hospital when Pearson was brought in for inspection after the incident, also told jurors Pearson had told her: “I’ve been trying to get rid of her for a while.”
And the court had also heard a recording, made discreetly by Leveque herself in the weeks leading up to her death, in which she told Pearson: “You are going to kill me”.
In the clip, Leveque was heard to say that Pearson had “beat the sh*t out of me on my 24th birthday”.
Pearson was heard to reply: “You deserved every bit of it and more. You’re lucky I didn’t bash your head in.”
Leveque suffered 55 injuries during the attack on 11 February 2024, with at least 26 of these stab wounds.
The high court had heard that Pearson had disclosed the location of the injuries which had been inflicted on Leveque’s body, which matched up to the findings of pathologists.
Despite all the evidence against him, Pearson tried to claim that it was Leveque who had stabbed herself in the lead-up to her death.
Pearson claimed that, after grabbing a knife, she jumped into a hot tub at a shed at his mother’s home.
He said she had stabbed herself near the rib and pulled the knife out, before plunging it in again another four or five times.
However Pearson told his own defence lawyer, when asked if he could have himself stabbed Leveque: “I suppose so. Anything could have happened.”
The Crown withdrew five charges on the final day of the trial, including that Pearson behaved in a threatening or abusive manner towards Leveque, that he uttered a threat about possessing “grenades” and that he attempted to defeat the ends of justice following the alleged murder.
A charge that he made offensive remarks to police officers and shouted and swore at the Gilbert Bain Hospital in Lerwick was also withdrawn.
By James Mulholland of Edinburgh Courts Press Services Ltd.
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