Julia James: Heartbroken husband of murdered PCSO pays tribute to her after ‘predator’ Callum Wheeler found guilty
THE heartbroken husband of a PCSO who was brutally murdered has paid tribute to his “amazing” wife after her killer was today found guilty.
Callum Wheeler, 22, killed Julia James as she walked her dog Toby near her home in Aylesham in Kent.
The “angry, violent, strange, highly sexualised man” monster lay in wait for a victim in woodland before pouncing on Julia, 53, on April 27 last year.
He had hatched a gruesome plot to murder a “lone woman” weeks before battering the PCSO to death.
Today her family fought back tears as they spoke of Julia, who worked supporting victims of domestic abuse.
Her husband Paul James described his wife as the “funniest person I have ever met”.
He added: “She just helped everybody, she just couldn’t do enough.
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“She was just amazing, I was so proud of her. The work she did was just amazing, to help so many other people, women who were in danger from men, bad men.”
“I just hurt so much.”
Meanwhile, her daughter called her mum’s killer a “vile excuse for a human being”.
She said: “He needs to be held accountable for what he has done to my mum but he’s also clearly a threat to women and it’s important to keep other women safe,” she added.
And Julia’s son Patrick Davis vowed to remember the “amazing life” his mother had and “not how it was ended by that monster”.
He added: “She was the best. She went without so we could grow up having things. There are just no words to describe how amazing she actually was.”
Wheeler was today convicted of murder after a trial at Canterbury Crown Court.
The fiend as held up by court workers in the dock as the verdict was read out.
The court heard chilling details of Julia’s final moments as she was ambushed by Wheeler brandishing the 1m-long, 3kg weapon.
She “ran for her life” to escape the monster – with her soaring heart rate picked up by her Apple smart watch.
Tragically, the device also picked up her last breaths as her life ebbed away.
Julia suffered “catastrophic” and “completely unsurvivable” injuries after being hit on the head repeatedly with the metal railway jack.
The attack was described as a “very violent and sustained assault to the head” – with a pathologist saying her injuries were “among the worst that I’ve seen”.
Wheeler meanwhile fled the scene still carrying the huge murder weapon in a Tesco carrier bag.
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He came across a gamekeeper, who challenged the killer as he walked through a field the next day.
The brave worker took a photograph of Wheeler and called the police about a “suspicious fella”.