Former journalist Winton Cooper was beaten to death by his son

A son who beat his ex-journalist father to death with a hammer has been ordered to stay in a mental hospital indefinitely.

Howard Winton Cooper, known as Winton, worked at the Barnsley Chronicle before moving to work as a news reporter and feature writer at the Huddersfield Examiner in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The former reporter,  left, who went on to become  a BBC radio presenter, was beaten to death by his 24-year-old son Joseph at their Dorset home in April 2011.

Joseph, who had admitted manslaughter through diminished responsibility at a previous hearing, will only be released from hospital with the consent of the Secretary of State for Justice or by a Mental Health Tribunal.

Winton also worked at Newcastle daily the Evening Chronicle in the mid-1980s, before moving to Sheffield where he took up a job as a radio host at the BBC.

There, he covered many high-profile stories including the Hillsborough disaster in 1989, when the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest saw 96 people lose their lives.

Winton’s body was discovered by police at the cottage in the village of Marnhull, near Sturminster Newton.

At the hearing in August last year, the court was told he was found with appalling injuries which his son had inflicted using the hammer, along with three kitchen knives and a pair of large secateurs.

Stewart Jones QC, prosecuting, said Cooper junior had a troubled childhood at the hands of his parents, with his father being violent and abusive to his son.

His parents had acrimoniously split in the 90s and Cooper was the middle of three brothers, spending his younger years in care and in trouble with the police after his father did not want him and his mother could not cope with him, the court heard.

Psychiatric reports found that Cooper – the middle of three sons – suffered from such an abnormality of mind that it had impaired his responsibility for his actions.

Warm tributes were paid to Winton at the time of his death.

Examiner columnist Denis Kilcommons said he had been “superb” at his job.

“He was brilliant company and a great raconteur. He had excellent wit and humour – he was one of life’s genuine characters,” he said.

Retired Examiner journalist Mike Shaw added: “He was a very bright and diligent reporter and was quite ambitious.’’