Nearly six years after police wrote off injuries sustained by a British resort owner as a bike accident, his family came forward Friday to insist it was murder, now that he is dead.
A lawyer representing the family of Steven James Granville filed a complaint at the Technology Crime Suppression Division over the police conclusion that the death was an accident. Vincent McOwen said they were coming forward now as Granville has died after being brain dead over four years in a UK hospital.
“We are here today to ask for a full and fair investigation,” McOwen said. “It is an ongoing case but we are hearing nothing back. We are getting no feedback.”
Granville opened Puravarna Resort, a 800-million-baht project set on 113 rai of land, in 2000. He was sentenced to jail for over a year for fraud in 2010.
The lawyer asked police to investigate two former partners of Granville’s who were involved in another project in 2012. He alleged the pair asked Granville to transfer 99 percent of Puravarna Resort’s shares – worth over 1 billion baht – reasoning that his criminal record could affect the project. According to McOwen, the siblings promised to return the shares within six months if a deal wasn’t forthcoming.
Less than three months after the shares were allegedly transferred, on June 24, 2013, Granville was seriously injured. McOwen said the only injury found was blunt force trauma to Granville’s head, with no wounds elsewhere on his body. Police ruled it a cycling accident.
With a fourth of his brain heavily damaged, Granville was unable to function and spent four years in hospital bed rest before dying at 52 last year.
“He was transferred back to England, where was he was brain dead. This was not an accident. He suffered for four and a half years,” McOwen said.
McOwen, 50, said Granville’s family suspected foul play despite the conclusion of Karon police and has lost 15 million baht in a losing legal battle to get back their property shares back.
