Two brothers who hurled a brick through a pensioner’s window after a row over a parking space were found guilty of killing him yesterday.

Bernard Gilbert, 79, died of a heart attack shortly after the incident at his home in Spondon, Derbyshire, in January last year.

Mark Forbes, 40, of Ripley, Derbyshire, and his brother Steven, 22, from the nearby village of South Normanton, took revenge for the dispute when they obtained Mr Gilbert’s address with the help of a now former police officer.

A jury at Nottingham Crown Court decided that the brothers were responsible for the pensioner’s death, even though they had not seen him during the episode. They were convicted of manslaughter at the end of the two-week trial.

Remanding them in custody until April, Mrs Justice Macur said that she faced a “difficult sentencing exercise” but warned the pair that “inevitably it will be a custodial sentence”.

The court had been told how the attack on the property was “a sinister plan to exact revenge” after the pensioner had become involved in a dispute over a supermarket parking space with Mark Forbes’s wife, Zoe, 26.

Michael Auty, for the prosecution, told the court that Mark Forbes, a paint sprayer, had become angry at the way Mr Gilbert “blew his stack” at his wife at the Asda store and began to plot revenge.

The court was told how, the following day, Forbes had sent a text to his wife, saying: “Fingers crossed, I’ll get an address. Then we’ll smash his car to bits – and then his hire car and then whatever he gets after that until he dies.” She replied: “OK, sweetie-pie.”

The couple and Forbes’s younger brother had got hold of Mr Gilbert’s address from an official database, with the help of his car registration number.

“A police officer misusing a police computer gives a friend of Mark Forbes most of the address. And that friend passes on the information to Mark Forbes,” Mr Auty said.

Mr Gilbert had been suffering from heart disease and had only a short time to live, the court was told, but it was claimed that the attack on his home had caused him to die that day.

Stephen Smith, the police officer who had given out the information for Mark Forbes, resigned from the Derbyshire force after an investigation led to his arrest. Smith, formerly of Kirkby-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, pleaded guilty in March last year to disclosing information contrary to the Data Protection Act. He was fined.

In a statement, Dee Collins, Assistant Chief Constable of Derbyshire, said: “What I hope this case does is send out a clear message that, no matter who you are or what you do for a living, if you seek to break the law you will be prosecuted.

“Stephen Smith has brought shame on himself, on his profession, on the force and to his family. He has abused his position of trust within the force and the local community.

“We expect the highest of standards from our staff, as do the people of Derbyshire, and I hope this prosecution demonstrates how seriously we take such matters.”

Mark Forbes and his wife, who was acquitted of manslaughter, pleaded guilty before the trial to a charge of conspiring to commit criminal damage. Steven Forbes also admitted his part in the conspiracy and a count of criminal damage.

They will be sentenced at Birmingham Crown Court in April on a date to be fixed.

Times Recommends

• Swine flu vaccine for all as drug rushed through
• Artificial sperm and the race to build a baby
• BBC jets out stars to tout for prizes