Man killed for asking yobs not to swear

1:03pm Friday 5th September 2008

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A POLITE pensioner paid with his life when he asked a group of thugs not to swear on a bus.

Stan Dixon, 60, died after making a stand because he did not want his partner, Anne Fisher, to hear the bad language on the Hartlepool to Peterlee service.

The couple saw trouble brewing and tried to get off the bus a stop earlier than they wanted, but Gary Robson, 23, gave Mr Dixon a shove. The pensioner fell from the bus, suffering severe head injuries.

He died in hospital four days after the fall, which happened on June 28.

Mr Dixon, from Horden, was a divorced father of three children - Paul, 34, June, 31, and 25-year-old Louise.

Ms Fisher, who has a daughter from a previous relationship, was at Newcastle Crown Court for the hearing.

She wept in the public gallery when the prosecution barrister Ewan Duff said the Crown was not proceeding with a murder charge which Robson initially faced.

Robson, who weighed about 18 stone and stood well over 6ft, pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter.

He denied a charge of common assault against Ms Fisher, which will not be continued.

He will be sentenced on October 17.

Ms Fisher, who revealed that she and Mr Dixon, 60, had planned to marry in September of next year, kept a vigil at his bedside until he died four days after the incident.

In a statement, she said: "Me and my daughter's lives have been ruined. I just don't know how I will move on from here.'' A qualified motor mechanic, Mr Dixon had worked at the former Horden Colliery, Nissan and Nightfreight before retiring due to ill health and in recent years walked with a stick.

He lived on Horden village's Eden Vale Estate in a terraced bungalow.

Next door neighbour Edward Slack, 67, said: "You couldn't have asked for a better neighbour."