Christopher Guest More, pictured, was arrested in Malta on behalf of Cheshire Police who want to question him in connection with the murder of Brian Waters in 2003
Fugitive Christopher Guest More Jr, 41, has been arrested in Malta over the murder of Brian Waters, 44, at a Cheshire farm in 2003 after 16 years on the run, the National Crime Agency said.
Mr Waters underwent systematic and barbaric torture’ as his family watched helplessly at Burnt House Farm in Tabley, near Knutsford, in June 2003.
More was last rumoured to be in Malaga after his father Chris flew to Spain a week after the murder with a suitcase containing a set of clean clothes, a new mobile phone and £2,500 cash.
His millionaire father Christopher More Snr, who runs a private investigation and fraud detection agency, admitted flying out to Malaga with a suitcase full of his son’s clothes, but claims he did not know at that time his son was suspected of committing a serious offence.
He was jailed for nine months in 2004 and ordered to pay the £130,000 costs of bringing the case to court.
Former undercover BBC researcher James Raven, 60, Otis Matthews, 41, and John Wilson, 69, are serving life sentences after being convicted of Mr Waters’ murder.
More is alleged to have been with the men when they stormed the derelict property, where Mr Waters was running a cannabis farm, in a row over a drugs debt.
The men tied Mr Waters to a chair before battering him in front of his son Gavin, who was also attacked, and 21-year-old daughter Natalie, who was held at gunpoint and forced to watch.
The 44-year-old victim was whipped, burned and attacked with a staple gun in a three-hour ordeal during which he sustained 167 injuries, a trial heard.
They pumped electric shocks through his body, drove staples into his head and neck, poured acid down his back and burnt molten plastic over his face.
He was then hung upside down and sexually assaulted with an iron bar, causing fatal internal injuries.
More, who is white and 6ft tall, is wanted for questioning in connection with Mr Waters’ death along with the attempted murder of a second man and the false imprisonment and assault of other victims at the scene.
He was added to Europol’s Most Wanted list in April.
More’s cousin Raven worked on programmes including the BBC’s MacIntyre Uncovered and Crooked Britain, as well as Channel 4’s Sleepers, infiltrating gangs involved in car crime, drugs and counterfeiting.
A Chester Crown Court trial in 2004 heard More also bragged about work as a surveillance-type journalist and had been following Mr Waters’ son nine days before the murder in what he described as a ‘reconnaissance’ mission.
After the systematic torture in the cow shed at the farm, Mr Waters’ body was dumped in a milking parlour.
Mr Waters, a former chemists’ worker, had rented Burnt House Farm since 2002 and used it to grow cannabis, a court heard.
But he was also involved in narcotics trafficking with one of his killers, drug dealer John Wilson, and was said to have owed him £20,000.
The murder of Mr Waters was planned to exact revenge on him for the debt and took place in what was described as a ‘makeshift torture chamber.’
The killers broke into the farmhouse and destroyed the cannabis farm, then attacked the stepson of Mr Waters’ business partner, battering him senseless and dragging into the barn where he was tied up by his ankles with his face submerged under water.
He was burned with chemicals and a pillowcase covering his head was set on fire as the gang laughed at his distress.
Mr Waters then arrived at the farm and was suspended upside down and used as a ‘human punchbag.’
When Waters’ son Gavin and a woman arrived at the farm they were abducted at gunpoint, and she was sexually assaulted.
Brian Waters’ wife Julie was also abducted from the family home and taken to the scene of the murder.
She arrived to discover that her husband had been murdered.