A farmer who shot his lodger and dismembered his body has been jailed for 35 years.

Richard Dyson, 55, disappeared in November 2019, but his remains, kept inside a concrete-filled barrel in a trailer on a farm near Barnsley, were not discovered for nearly six years.

A trial at Sheffield Crown Court heard how Christopher Wright killed Dyson when he tried to steal a gun from him before disposing of the body with the help of his childhood friend Karl Schwalbe.

Last month, Wright, 73, was convicted of murder and Schwalbe, 72, was found guilty of perverting the course of justice.

Wright, a former butcher, was also found guilty of conspiracy to pervert the justice, preventing a lawful burial and six firearms offences.

Jailing him, Mr Justice Cotter said: “You had worked as a butcher and were skilled enough to do such a terrible thing, something few ordinary people would have the stomach for.”

Schwalbe was given a three-year sentence for perverting the course of justice.

Bethany Dainty, Dyson’s daughter, said her life had become a “living nightmare”.

She had issued numerous appeals for help tracing her father in the years he was missing.

In a victim impact statement read to the court, she said: “Someone watched me suffering for years and said nothing. That level of cruelty is impossible for me to understand.”

The court previously heard Dyson had been living in his car outside Wright’s cottage on Sheffield Road in Hoyland, often helping him with various jobs like cutting hedges, mending tractors and driving him to appointments.

Jurors heard Wright was a “weapons fanatic” and “a collector”, who owned a number of vintage firearms, old farm machinery and musical instruments.

Dyson’s ex-partner recalled how several months before his disappearance, Dyson had found a machine gun at Wright’s farm and kept it because it was “worth a lot of money”.

Prosecutors said Wright became “greatly angered” when he found out about the theft and killed him “with a shotgun immediately to hand”.

The last call from Dyson’s phone was made on 17 November 2019 and he was reported missing. Both Wright and Schwalbe, of Dike Hill, Low Harley, in Rotherham, were interviewed by police in the months after but denied knowing what had happened.

The pair’s trial heard how Wright had enlisted the help of his childhood friend Schwalbe to help him hide Dyson’s body.

In July 2025, a review of mobile phone data uncovered that Wright had called the owner of nearby Alderthwaite Farm in Hoyland three days after Dyson disappeared.

Farmer Ian Ollerenshaw told the court Wright had asked if he could store a livestock trailer on his land while he was “tidying up” his own farm, and noted the events of that day in his diary.

Ollerenshaw, who like Wright was a tenant of the Wentworth Estate, said the trailer was towed onto his land by a Fordson vintage tractor, but that he did not look inside it once it was parked.

Dyson’s body was later discovered in a concrete-filled barrel inside the padlocked trailer alongside Wright’s ID.

Outside court, Det Ch Insp Andy Knowles from South Yorkshire Police praised Dyson’s loved ones and said the investigation had been “long, complex and emotionally draining”.

He said: “Wright and Schwalbe knew what happened to Richard and even with the evidence against them, they continued to deny accountability, making Richard’s family endure a trial, listen to harrowing evidence and distressing testimonies.

“The strength and dignity in confronting each moment of this process has been nothing short of extraordinary.”

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