Man tortured to death

Search: Police have sealed off the house where Keith Webb was discovered

Detectives hunting a gang of crack cocaine dealers suspected of taking over a man's house and torturing him to death are close to making arrests.

Police believe they have identified members of the gang who hijacked Keith Webb's home, forcing him to retreat to an attic.

The gang is believed to be one of dozens which have resorted to invading the homes of the elderly and mentally ill to turn them into crack dens.

Mr Webb, 57, who was single with no children, had managed to evict the drug dealers who had plagued him, with the help of his family and police, after a series of armed police raids on his Streatham home.

Yet neighbours said the dealers returned and Mr Webb, who worked for an engineering firm, was too frightened and intimidated to stop them turning his three- storey Victorian semi into a crack den. Eventually he shut himself off, going to work and returning to a single back bedroom, while young dealers controlled the rest of the property.

His body was found bound and gagged in the attic room last Wednesday. Police believe it may have been there for up to three weeks before being discovered by a relative.

A post mortem found he died a horrific death, sometime early in January, as a result of "maltreatment at the hands of a suspect or suspects". He had been kicked and punched repeatedly.

Detective Chief Inspector Brian Haynes, leading the murder hunt, said: "His family are distraught. This was a particularly brutal murder."

He described Mr Webb as a man of good character who had asked police for assistance in evicting people from his home in Ellison Road.

Scotland Yard said Mr Webb's family, with police from Lambeth, initiated eviction procedures against others in the house. The family applied to the County Court for an eviction order. On 4 October last year a drugs search warrant was executed with support from armed police and a number of people were evicted.

Neighbours described Mr Webb as a quiet, shy man, who was rarely seen except when leaving for work or returning home in the evening. One neighbour, an 81-year-old widow, who knew Mr Webb's family for more than 20 years, said: "He was always very nice and always used to say good morning ."

But local people noticed dramatic changes in the past year when the house was turned into a crack den. One resident recalled an incident in which a young man is believed to have shot himself in the foot while cleaning a gun inside the house. Another man covered in blood jumped over a fence into the next door neighbour's garden.

"There were armed police there time after time," said another neighbour. "They threw the dealers out and they just came back - sometimes as quickly as the next day. Mr Webb was probably terrified of them."

The murder has highlighted the problem of ruthless drug gangs invading the suburban homes of vulnerable people.

The owners are often too terrified to resist or in many cases raise the alarm. In one case a council tenant was forced to live in his cupboard while dealers took over the rest of his flat.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in