Mark Hobson - Arrest and Trial

Arrest and Trial

Hobson was arrested at a petrol station on 25 July 2004, in the village of Shipton-by-Beningbrough, near York, following a nationwide manhunt. At his subsequent trial in April 2005, Hobson admitted all four murders. He was sentenced to life imprisonment on 27 May 2005 with a recommendation that he should never be released.

The court was also told that Hobson had stabbed a love rival five times in the chest in a daylight attack in front of shoppers in Selby in 2002, leaving him with a punctured lung. Hobson had admitted grievous bodily harm and avoided a prison sentence, instead receiving a community punishment order. This lenient sentence came under much criticism in the light of Hobson's later offending.