{"id":31388,"date":"2025-06-20T12:21:52","date_gmt":"2025-06-20T12:21:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/dean-mears-rhyl-ring-doorbell-killer-jailed-for-catherine-flynn-murder\/"},"modified":"2025-06-20T12:21:52","modified_gmt":"2025-06-20T12:21:52","slug":"dean-mears-rhyl-ring-doorbell-killer-jailed-for-catherine-flynn-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/dean-mears-rhyl-ring-doorbell-killer-jailed-for-catherine-flynn-murder\/","title":{"rendered":"Dean Mears Rhyl ring doorbell killer jailed for Catherine Flynn murder"},"content":{"rendered":"


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George Herd<\/span><\/p>\n

BBC News<\/span><\/p>\n

Reporting from<\/svg>Caernarfon Crown Court<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

A judge described the attack as “senseless”, resulting in “catastrophic injuries”<\/figcaption><\/p>\n
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The daughter of a woman brutally killed by a drug dealer has said her life “shattered” the moment she saw the murderer enter her mother’s home.<\/p>\n

Dean Mears dragged grandmother Catherine Flynn, 69, from her bed and stamped on her, breaking every bone in her face during the attack in October 2024.<\/p>\n

Mrs Flynn’s daughter Natasha Flynn-Farrell said she watched helplessly after she received a doorbell camera alert of the drug dealer breaking into her mother’s home in the seaside town of Rhyl in Denbighshire. <\/p>\n

Jailing him for life with a 27 year and 128 day minimum term, Judge Rhys Rowlands said Mears, 35, was responsible for a “savage, and quite ferocious and merciless attack”. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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He said the recording captured on the doorbell camera “can only be described as horrific”.<\/p>\n

“It was by all accounts a truly shocking and cruel way to end her life.”<\/p>\n

Mears, from Kinmel Bay in Conwy, was found guilty of murder after a nine-day trial in Caernarfon in May.<\/p>\n

The jury heard he had taken ketamine and cannabis before breaking into the frail grandmother’s home – a woman he had never met.<\/p>\n

He then smashed a window and entered the home, going straight to Mrs Flynn’s bedroom.<\/p>\n

He could be heard screaming at her before the sickening sound of stamping was captured on the doorbell recording.<\/p>\n

Mrs Flynn was taken to hospital after suffering extensive facial trauma and multiple fractures, where she died the following day.<\/p>\n

Prosecutor Andrew Jones KC said she had suffered serious health and mobility issues, and used a stairlift and a walking frame inside her house.<\/p>\n

She was just 4ft 10in (1.47m) and weighed less than eight stone (50kg).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Mears pleaded guilty to manslaughter, but was found guilty of murder by a jury after a nine-day trial in May<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Mrs Flynn-Farrell addressed her mother’s killer in the dock on Friday. <\/p>\n

“You Dean Mears – you can’t even look at me,” she said. <\/p>\n

“You didn’t just kill my mum – you killed a part of me.<\/p>\n

“You Dean Mears took the light out of my life.<\/p>\n

“I want my words and my face to be etched into your brain.”<\/p>\n

She said she lived with the footage and sounds captured by the doorbell camera during the attack.<\/p>\n

“I hear those thuds to her head, face and neck every day.<\/p>\n

“It replays in my in slow motion – thud, thud, thud.<\/p>\n

“That moment was the vilest, sickening moment of my life.<\/p>\n

“How could you do what you did to my mum – my queenie. You should hang your head in shame.<\/p>\n

“You are nothing but a coward. I’ll never forgive you Dean Mears.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"FamilyFamily photo<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Catherine Flynn, who was known by family and friends as Cathy, died from extensive stamp injuries to her head and neck<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Pathologist Dr Brian Rodgers told the jury Mrs Flynn’s injuries were “the types of injuries you see in high-speed road traffic collisions”.<\/p>\n

The doorbell recording suggested there were up to 15 blows from her killer.<\/p>\n

Mears admitted he had carried out the attack, but said he had no recollection of what happened.<\/p>\n

His defence team argued Mears had been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), after being stabbed twice following a prison sentence for drug dealing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Natasha Flynn-Farrell says her mother’s murder has left her family “shattered”<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Speaking to BBC Wales before the sentencing, Mrs Flynn-Farrell recounted the moment she received the doorbell notification to tell her someone was at her mother’s front door.<\/p>\n

“It is the worst night of my life I have ever experienced,” she said.<\/p>\n

“My life just shattered in that second,” she said. <\/p>\n

“As soon as I clicked on that notification, that was the moment my world crumbled.”<\/p>\n

Mrs Flynn-Farrell was home alone as events unfolded a short drive away at her mother’s house, and could only watch and listen until Mears left before she could phone the police.<\/p>\n

“For those two minutes I had to watch that out. It felt like two hours. I was hysterical.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Arriving at the house, Mrs Flynn-Farrell was kept outside while police went in to see what had happened to her mother.<\/p>\n

“I did know it was serious but I was trying to tell myself it was going to be OK, that hopefully it wasn’t as bad as what I’d heard.<\/p>\n

“But it was awful. It was the worst outcome that could have ever happened for her – and for all our family.” <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Mrs Flynn-Farrell said Mears was “not worth the air we breathe”.<\/p>\n

“To be able to do that to a defenceless, 69-year-old, frail, seven stone little woman. She was like a little doll.<\/p>\n

“He’s a monster and he’s a coward.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Mrs Flynn-Farrell said her mother’s murder has had a profound affect on her and those around her.<\/p>\n

“There are so many lives he has ripped apart,” she said.<\/p>\n

“The ripple effect this has had – not just on the family, on the community, on complete strangers. It’s been a whirlwind of emotions for everyone.”<\/p>\n

She said she was still living with the impact every day.<\/p>\n

“I find it hard most days to get up and go out. I don’t want to see anyone, I’ve lost contact with my friends. <\/p>\n

“It’s given me bad anxiety, depression, PTSD. I don’t even watch the telly anymore, in case things trigger it.<\/p>\n

“I’m living a nightmare still.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The murder took place at Cefndy Road in the Rhyl<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Mrs Flynn-Farrell said she hoped the sentencing could finally bring some closure to the tragedy and wants to be able to help others facing family trauma in the future.<\/p>\n

She coined the social media tag #JusticeforQueenie as the murder case went through the court system, as a platform to remember her mother and to talk about what had happened.<\/p>\n

“It’s not just for my mum – it’s for everyone’s Queenie,” she said.<\/p>\n

“I want this to carry on and be a platform against violence for women and girls. It’ll be used to help other organisations, femicide awareness and things like that.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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George Herd BBC News Reporting fromCaernarfon Crown Court A judge described the attack as “senseless”, resulting in “catastrophic injuries” The daughter of a woman brutally killed by a drug dealer has said her life “shattered” the moment she saw the murderer enter her mother’s home. Dean Mears dragged grandmother Catherine Flynn, 69, from her bed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31389,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[10605,5833,10604,10606,940,1458,10603,880,6406,3669],"class_list":["post-31388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wales","tag-catherine","tag-dean","tag-doorbell","tag-flynn","tag-jailed","tag-killer","tag-mears","tag-murder","tag-rhyl","tag-ring"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31388"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31390,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31388\/revisions\/31390"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}