Martin Greensmith
Introduction
Martin Greensmith is a 37-year-old man from Willington, County Durham, England, who was jailed for six years for the manslaughter of Steven Shevels, the 61-year-old father he had met for what his family said was the first time on the day he killed him. On the afternoon of December 24, 2025, both men were drinking at The Queen’s Head pub in Willington when Greensmith, who had only just been told by his mother that Shevels was his biological father, pushed him over in the beer garden. Shevels struck the back of his head on the concrete floor and was pronounced dead at the scene about an hour later. Greensmith denied manslaughter, telling jurors he had only pushed the man “gently” after feeling intimidated, but a jury at Teesside Crown Court convicted him by a 10-2 majority after almost six hours of deliberation, and he was sentenced at Newcastle Crown Court on October 23, 2026.
Background Information
Greensmith knew that his father was a man called Steven Shevels, but told the court it was not until his family were in the pub on Christmas Eve that his mother identified Shevels to him as his biological father. Shevels, who the court heard was known in the nearby town of Crook as a nuisance when drunk, arrived at the pub and annoyed the Greensmith family by sitting nearby and trying to talk to them. Greensmith said he went outside to get away from him, and that Shevels followed a few minutes later into the beer garden after being asked to leave the pub. When Shevels blocked his path and moved closer, Greensmith told jurors he pushed him back to create space, after the pair had exchanged a few short sentences culminating in Greensmith saying something along the lines of “you’re my dad, I don’t want to know you.” Prosecutors maintained instead that he had caused Shevels’s death during a fit of anger.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Convicted and sentenced. Greensmith was convicted of manslaughter at Teesside Crown Court in September 2026 and jailed for six years at Newcastle Crown Court on October 23, 2026.
According to the prosecution case, Greensmith approached Shevels in the beer garden and delivered a “powerful and aggressive push” to his upper body, causing him to fall backwards and strike his head on the concrete floor with fatal force. Greensmith said he was stunned to see Shevels fall and was among those who tried to help the unconscious man, and despite the efforts of people in the pub, including Greensmith’s own mother, and paramedics, Shevels was pronounced dead at the scene about an hour later. A pathologist told jurors Shevels died from a blunt force trauma to the head, with a concussion causing him to lose consciousness and his alcohol consumption limiting his ability to keep breathing. Greensmith left the pub before emergency services attended and handed himself in at the home he shared with his mother at lunchtime on Christmas Day; the court heard that before his arrest he had searched online for a lawyer and looked at a page about involuntary manslaughter. Judge Jonathan Carroll told him: “The jury, rightly in my view, rejected your assertion of self-defence,” adding that Shevels had been presenting “absolutely no risk or threat to you.”
Public Reaction and Consequences
Victim statements from Shevels’s family were read at the sentencing hearing. His daughter Chloe described him as a “quiet and timid man” who loved nature and rock music, said she learned of his death “through gossip from other people when I was opening presents,” and told the court: “I now dread the thought of Christmas.” His sister Angela Thompson called him “the victim of an unprovoked and selfish act of violence, which took his life and took him from us far too soon,” saying: “Christmas is supposed to be a time of happiness and togetherness. Well, that’s been taken away from us now.” Detective Chief Inspector Alfie Keane of Durham Police called it “a truly devastating case,” saying it showed “how split-second decisions can have life-long consequences and an unimaginable impact on everyone around them.”
Current Status
Greensmith, 37, is serving a six-year sentence imposed at Newcastle Crown Court on October 23, 2026, after the jury rejected his claim that he acted in self-defence against a man he described as intimidating him. In mitigation the court heard he was “genuinely remorseful” and had experienced “significant emotional distress” and intrusive thoughts since the killing, and a pre-sentence report suggested he may have felt “overwhelmed” by learning Shevels was his biological father, in what the report described as the first and only time he had met him. The judge remanded him in custody between conviction and sentencing on the grounds of the likely sentence, and the case stands as a conviction for manslaughter rather than murder.
Impact on Their Career/Life
At 37, Greensmith faces six years in prison for a killing that unfolded within hours of his first meeting with his father, in a case that drew national attention because of its timing on Christmas Eve and the extraordinary circumstances of the encounter. The sentence and the judge’s rejection of his self-defence account leave him with a manslaughter conviction on his record, and the case closed with Shevels’s family describing how a death they learned of through gossip on Christmas morning had taken away the holiday for them permanently. For the Willington community where the killing happened in a pub beer garden, the trial at Teesside and sentencing at Newcastle set out the full sequence of the encounter in public for the first time.