Mark Wigley
Introduction
Mark Wigley, 60, of Royston Road, Cudworth, near Barnsley, was jailed for nine years at Sheffield Crown Court on October 29, 2026, for running down and killing 45-year-old handyman Liam Green during a dispute that began when Green knocked on doors offering to cut grass for £7.50. Wigley struck Green with his white Volkswagen Touareg on Rose Tree Avenue, Cudworth, at about 5pm on April 3, 2026, and Green died at the scene. A jury cleared Wigley of murder but convicted him of manslaughter after a three-week trial, while his daughter Sarah Wigley, 39, and brother-in-law Neil Shaw, 54 — who had also been charged with murder — were acquitted of all charges. In addition to the prison term, Wigley was banned from driving for five years after his release.
Background Information
Green was a father of two who had struggled with addiction and was going door to door on the day he died looking for gardening work, offering to cut residents’ grass. He called at the home of Wigley’s elderly mother, Louise Jean Wigley, where he was, in the court’s finding, “polite and respectful” in asking for work. She became upset that he had offered the service for a £7.50 fee, and sent images from her Ring doorbell camera to her family by instant message — a screenshot that led the family to believe she was being harassed by a “drug user pestering older women for money,” an assumption the sentencing judge called the product of “breathtaking arrogance.” Wigley set out with his daughter and brother-in-law to find Green — Shaw driving a Ford Ranger, Wigley the VW Touareg with Sarah as passenger — and found him after about 30 minutes. The confrontation that followed, and the decision Wigley made at the wheel of his car, killed a man who had been doing nothing more than looking for work.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Adjudicated vs. alleged. Wigley’s manslaughter conviction was returned by a jury at Sheffield Crown Court after a three-week trial and is a matter of court record. He was cleared of murder, and his daughter and brother-in-law were cleared of all charges; any conduct connected to those cleared counts remains an unproven allegation.
When the trio found Green, Wigley assaulted the 45-year-old and slammed him against a van. The family then began to leave — but Green emerged carrying a metal table leg and confronted them again, shouting “come on then.” “In that moment, you made the decision to drive into him,” Judge Richard Reeds told Wigley at sentencing. Green was struck by the Touareg and suffered fatal injuries; his mother, Lori Hilton, who lived on Rose Tree Avenue, emerged to find her son lying fatally injured under the car and held his hand as he died. Wigley was arrested and charged with murder within three days. During the trial his defence, Joe Stone KC, argued the collision was “an accident that has happened almost spontaneously,” that Wigley had asked his daughter to call 999 immediately, did not flee, and did not drive over Green after the initial collision. The jury’s verdict split the difference the charge structure offered: manslaughter, not murder.
Judge Reeds sentenced Wigley to nine years and a five-year driving disqualification, and condemned what he called the “breathtaking arrogance” of Wigley and his family: “you collectively made no inquiry into why he was calling at pensioners’ bungalows and just assumed that he was a drug user who was pestering older people for money. He was not, but that didn’t stop you.” Earlier in the proceedings, at a hearing where Wigley confronted Green’s mother, he had shouted: “I’m going to f***ing kill your son for what he’s done.” The judge told him: “You had the time and space to drive around him and get away if you chose to do so. You chose the opposite. Your actions caused the death of a much-loved son, father, brother.”
Public Reaction and Consequences
Green’s family statements framed the public response. His mother Laurie Hilton spoke through tears about a son who “had only wanted to help neighbours with their garden,” describing how after his death she struggled to go to the shops and could no longer eat chocolate or cheese, and onion on toast, because they reminded her of him: “I miss his phone calls of a night… He was a real mammy’s boy.” She added: “I will never see him again until I join him. Sometimes I pray for that day to come sooner. I am so miserable.” Green’s brother Shane wrote that the impact on the family had been “unimaginable,” and his ex-partner Sally Wilkinson, mother of one of his sons, described him as “a good man with a big heart and lots of love to give.” Detectives and the judge both rejected the family’s framing of Green as a threat: Judge Reeds said that “regardless of what he might have done in his past, on this occasion he was doing nothing more than going to neighbours on the estate where his mum lived and trying to get work cutting the grass.”
The consequences: Wigley, 60, begins a nine-year sentence with a five-year driving ban to follow, and his manslaughter conviction — for using a car as a weapon, as the judge put it at an earlier hearing — now defines the incident that began with a £7.50 lawn offer. Sarah Wigley and Neil Shaw walked free, acquitted of all charges.
Current Status
Wigley is serving a nine-year prison sentence imposed October 29, 2026, and will be disqualified from driving for five years after his release. The manslaughter conviction followed a three-week trial; the murder charge and the charges against his daughter and brother-in-law all ended in acquittals, so the court record holds one conviction and three clearances for the same incident. The sentencing coverage records no appeal.
Impact on Their Career/Life
Wigley’s life at 60 now runs on the sentencing judge’s timeline: nine years in prison — into his late sixties — followed by five years without a driving licence in a South Yorkshire village where a car is a necessity. The judge’s finding that he “used your car as a weapon and intended to hit him and cause some injury” is the legal characterization he will live with, alongside the public record of a killing triggered by an elderly woman’s Ring doorbell screenshot and a family’s assumption about a stranger. For Green’s family, the sentence closed a case his mother told the court had left her praying for her own death; for Cudworth, the case stands as the account of a handyman killed for knocking on doors.