Chelsea’s boyfriend devastated over guilty verdict

Luke Walker, 25, was found guilty by a jury in Heraklion Mixed Criminal Court of GBH leading to death after Chelsea Hyndman, 20, from Castleford, died three years ago.

Walker, from Brierley Hill, near Dudley, had originally been charged with murder but the charge was downgraded during his two-day trial.

He was sentenced to eight years in prison, which his legal team immediately appealed against.

Walker agreed to pay a 10,000 euro (£8,552) bail surety within 10 days and he was therefore told the sentence would be suspended and he could go back to England.

He will have to return to the Greek island for a retrial in the appeals court, which is expected to take place in around a year’s time.

Speaking from Crete, where he will have to remain until he and his family can raise the bail money, he said: “Obviously I’m devastated. I came here to clear my name and to end up being found guilty is heartbreaking.

“There’s a long way to go yet, it’s not the end. I’ve still got the appeal to come and I’ll clear my name yet.”

Walker said there was “no comfort at all” in the fact that the murder charge against him was downgraded because “I’m an innocent man”.

During the trial, the court heard that Miss Hyndman died from acute peritonitis in May 2010 after being taken to hospital with abdominal pains. Prosecutors claim she was beaten by Walker, but he told the court he did not know the reasons for her death.

Miss Hyndman’s mother, Heather, and her partner Neil Lorriman were in court for the trial but have declined to comment in the aftermath.

The trial was laced with drama and intensity – there was controversy over written evidence submitted to the court from sources that George Pyromallis, Walker’s barrister, said could have been forged; heated debates between legal counsel and judges; prosecutor Achilles Kyriakou burst into tears during his closing speech and hastily left the courtroom; and the court sat for 11 hours on the first day and 13 on the second in an effort to get the case finished.

Describing it as a “shambles”, Walker said he was unhappy with the way he was tried.

He added: “It was an absolute shambles. The stuff that was going on was ridiculous.

“The two judges in the middle, the president and the magistrate, were just laughing and joking all the way through, the prosecutor was playing on his phone and one jury member was going to sleep.

“When my lawyer was trying to ask questions the president in the middle was saying ‘get a move on’ because we’ve got two days and there’s not another court slot for ten days, so we want to get it done.”

Walker said he was looking forward to going home but was also worried about how people might perceive him after his trial. “But I’m going to go home with my head held high,” he added.

He said grieving for Miss Hyndman, who he had been dating for two years and lived with in the resort of Malia where they both worked in bars, has been difficult.

“She’s always on my mind. I miss her all the time. I haven’t had my full chance to grieve yet,” he said.

“At the end of the day my whole life fell apart in one day. I lost everything in one day and there was nothing I could do, I tried to do everything I could.”

Walker’s father, Patrick, said he would probably have to sell the family home to fund the retrial.