Heartache for family of Brit expat, 29, axed to death in 2019 gangland-style killing that

A six-year investigation into the gangland-style execution of a British expat in Portugal has suffered a massive setback following the shock acquittal of the sole suspects.

Portuguese prosecutors charged two men with Joel Eldridge’s murder after his remains were discovered in August 2019 following a tip-off from British police. They included a drug dealer currently serving life in a UK prison for killing a mother and her four-year-old son.

A gut-wrenching indictment accused convicted killer Jacob Barnard, 35, of smashing Joel’s skull into more than 40 pieces with an axe after attacking him with a stun gun and stabbing and shooting him.

He was charged with murder and desecrating a body alongside alleged accomplice Joshua Sherwood, 31, from Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire.

Prosecutors went to court against the pair alleging Mr Eldridge, 29 when he disappeared in July 2018, was killed in a brutal execution his killers had pre-planned because they feared he was about to return to the UK and report them to police for crimes being committed abroad.

Three judges have now acquitted both men of any wrongdoing after a stop-start trial in the central Portuguese city of Castelo Branco.

The surprise decision came despite sadistic Barnard, who had already been sentenced to eight years in prison in Portugal for drug trafficking and possession of an offensive weapon before his May 2021 UK murder conviction, refusing to give evidence and Sherwood failing to attend court despite a summons.

The trial judges concluded Mr Eldridge, who vanished around six months after moving to Portugal to join a building project, had died of the ‘multiple traumatic injuries’ inflicted on him.

They described the attack on him as ‘so violent’ that he had been reduced to an ‘amalgam of broken, crushed and burnt flesh and bones’ and said his skull was in 43 pieces when his remains were found hidden in a grave on shrubland near Pedrogao Grande more than a year after he vanished.

But they ruled it hadn’t been proven at trial who had been responsible for the savage attack or who had disposed of the victim’s body.

Joel’s brother Samuel, who towards the end of the trial had spoken optimistically of the chances of a conviction by describing it as ‘another big step towards the justice that Joel deserves’, raged after learning the two defendants had been acquitted: ‘The verdict has left us shocked, saddened, confused and angry.

‘We were hoping for justice for Joel and some closure for us as a family and for his friends.

‘The outcome – acquittal due to lack of evidence – has given us neither.

‘We now must wait again before we can decide on the next steps to take.’

Their mum Jacki, who reported Joel’s disappearance to Sussex Police in August 2018 and made a video appeal with husband Alan the following March around the time of what would have been his 30th birthday, added: ‘We are all struggling with this. In view of the evidence we are aware of, it makes us wonder.’

Joel’s last contact with his family was in mid-July 2018 after he wished his brother a happy birthday on Facebook. He had travelled to Portugal in January that year to work on a house near the university city of Coimbra.

Prosecutors claimed in an indictment released in November 2022 he was murdered between July 17 and 28 2018 in the living room of Sherwood’s home in the village of Macieira around 60 miles south-west of Pedrogao Grande.

They said in their 20-page indictment: ‘For reasons related to Joel Eldridge’s wish to return to the UK, and fearing he would co-operate with police there and report their drug trafficking activity in Portugal, Jacob Barnard and Joshua Sherwood hatched a plan to kill him.’

They accused Barnard of snorting a line of cocaine after the horrific crime and sending a mobile phone picture of Joel’s body to an unidentified friend.

Although Sherwood, whose whereabouts are currently unknown, was not accused of physically attacking Mr Eldridge, prosecutors alleged in their indictment the pair had ‘mutually agreed’ to kill him.

The trial judges ruled those claims had not been proven after retiring to consider their verdict following the last court session.

They insisted in their 22-page written ruling, released in full for the first time late last week, that they couldn’t ‘draw conclusions’ from Barnard’s decision to refuse to testify in open court.

And they said a statement Sherwood had given UK police had no evidential value in a Portuguese court because he hadn’t turned up for his trial and therefore couldn’t be cross-examined.

There was no indication in the judges’ verdict he would face any criminal charges in Portugal over his failure to answer his court summons.

The three judges also insisted none of the witnesses, who included Joel’s mum, his Portuguese landlady and Portuguese police, offered evidence enabling them to convict the defendants.

Policia Judicial inspector Sandra Roxo told the court the tip-off that led them to the whereabouts of Joel’s remains came from the Surrey and Sussex Major Crime Team.

Barnard, from the Welsh seaside town of Aberystwyth, was one of two men jailed for life following the July 10, 2018 murders of Gina Ingles and her son Milo.

They were killed in a blaze in the dead of night after petrol poured through the front door was ignited at their home in Eastbourne, East Sussex.

Barnard and Andrew Milne, described as his enforcer, were each found guilty of two counts of murder and one of attempted murder following a trial.

Barnard was jailed for life with a minimum term of 36 years. Furniture remover Milne, from Hastings, was jailed for life with a minimum term of 34 years.

Police said it had been their way of enforcing a drug debt thought to have been around £400.

Fire investigators found Ms Ingles crouching over her deceased son, with the pair huddled under a windowsill in their burnt-out bedroom.

Gina’s partner Toby Jarrett, said to have owed money for drugs, spent months in hospital after jumping from the first-floor window of the house.

Sherwood was mentioned in Barnard’s Brighton Crown Court murder trial.

Prosecutors said he received a confession from Barnard that he and Milne were going to a home in Eastbourne to make threats to enforce a drug debt.

But Lewis Power QC told jurors Mr Sherwood was ‘bolstered by greed and self-interest’ in trying to take over Barnard’s drugs operation from Portugal to the UK.