A pair of young lovers who killed a terminally-ill pensioner over sex abuse claims have been locked up for a total of 20 years.

Claire Hardy, then 18, was fuelled by drink when she tricked her way into 60-year-old John Greer’s flat in September last year, followed by her besotted boyfriend Reece Gledhill, who had just turned 18.

After they attacked the pensioner, who Hardy alleged had sexually abused her years before, they staged a burglary to cover their tracks, trying to sell his television and stereo only hours later.

It was Hardy’s mother, a friend of Mr Greer’s, who found him strangled with his throat cut at his home in Arncliffe Close, Rastrick.

Hardy, of Close Lea Way, Rastrick, had told family and friends she had been abused by Mr Greer, known as Brushy, when she was 11, Leeds Crown Court heard yesterday.

Despite telling her parents as a child, they had rejected her claims and chose to believe their friend Mr Greer instead, the court was told.

Simon Bourne-Arton QC, representing Hardy, now 19, said this rejection “rubbed against that particular sore” of being abused. Her father had left home when she was seven and the only person she could have turned to was her mother.

But, he said, her mother continued to be friends with Mr Greer and so Hardy went “off the rails” and started drinking and smoking cannabis.

In September it became known to her that Mr Greer, who had severe breathing difficulties because of his lung disease and struggled to walk, had been given six months to live.

“The defendant (Hardy) became obsessed that he should not die without accepting and admitting the abuse to her,” said Mr Bourne-Arton.

At the time of Mr Greer’s death he was facing a Crown Court appearance in the south of England “under similar allegations”, he said.

On the day of the attack, Hardy and Gledhill had talked on a website about Mr Greer and what he was alleged to have done to her. She and another friend had also drunk about 20 cans of lager and bottles of cider.

After having met Gledhill, she left a friend’s house determined to get an acknowledgement from Greer, taking a dressing gown cord with her.

She tricked her way into Mr Greer’s flat, she challenged him, he denied it, tempers were lost.

“He went to push her, there was a struggle. He went to the ground by which time the co-accused came in and saw what was happening,” said Mr Bourne-Arton.

In a written statement to police, Gledhill said he had walked in to see Mr Greer’s hands on his girlfriend.

“Having thought of what he had done to her previously, I lost it. I grabbed him round the neck. The man died and I accept the responsibility of his death,” he said.

He also said it was his idea to pretend there had been a burglary.

Maura McGowan QC, representing him, said Gledhill, who had turned 18 five days before the attack and had expressed his remorse and sympathies to Mr Greer’s family in a letter to the court, had fallen in love with Hardy and was “besotted” by her.

“The first defendant (Hardy) was the dominant one in the relationship. They fell in love. He was not a drinker, not someone who was violent to others. It was the product of their relationship that brought him to this path,” she said.

Gledhill had even until this end been “desperate to assist and aid” Hardy, she said adding: “This was not his fight, not his battle.”

Bryan Cox QC prosecuting said the precise part played in the joint attack by each of them was unclear.

The pair had made confessions to friends before they were arrested but Mr Justice Blair said neither had ever explained who was responsible for the knife wound although evidence pointed to it being Hardy.

Sentencing Gledhill the judge said he was satisfied it was “not a murder done for gain”. He said by “facing up to the crime” and pleading guilty to murder he had saved the victim’s family from the agony of a trial.

Gledhill was jailed for 12 years minus 190 days spent on remand. He will remain on licence for life.

Sentencing Hardy, who had pleaded guilty to manslaughter but denied murder, Mr Justice Blair told her: “You were the instigator of the confrontation. You were the dominant partner in the relationship. But for you, John Greer would still be alive and Reece Gledhill would not be beginning a life sentence for murder.

“Whatever happened in the past there was not the slightest excuse of going to John Greer’s home that night. You took the law into your own hands with disastrous results.”

He sentenced her to eight years at a Young Offender Institution, to serve half of the sentence in custody and the remainder released on licence.

After the hearing, there were high-charged scenes in and outside the courtroom between the victim’s and Hardy’s families with police breaking up the angry exchanges.