Stephen Seddon
Stephen Seddon has been found guilty of shooting his parents dead after a botched attempt on their live months earlier.

A convicted fraudster who killed his parents to get his hands on a £230,000 inheritance is facing a life sentence after he was found guilty of their murder.

Stephen Seddon shot his parents dead at their home in Sale, Greater Manchester, in July 2012, months after he made a first, botched, attempt on their lives.

During a five-week trial, a jury at Manchester Crown Court heard that the 46-year-old convicted fraudster had tried to kill his father, Robert Seddon, 68, and mother, Patricia, 65, four months earlier in a staged car accident.

Prosecutors said he was driven by an "insatiable thirst for cash" and carried out the "execution" to get his hands on the money left for him in their will.

Seddon was hailed as a hero after his parents almost died when he deliberately drove their car into a canal but pretended it was an accident.

In the aftermath of the crash he told MEN website: "We were just going down the road and I got severe pains in my chest. I've gone like that and then before I knew it there was a bang and the car just veered off to the right-hand side."

He finally succeeded in killing them when he shot them dead with a sawn-off shotgun at their home in July.

"He had planned these crimes in enormous detail and went to great lengths to cover his tracks and avoid detection," Cheryl Hramiak, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said.

"After his failed attempt to kill his parents by driving the car into the canal he even presented himself as a hero for trying to rescue them.

"The jury has consequently rejected his version of what happened when he drove the car into the canal and his bogus, and outlandish, accounts of the day that he killed his parents. They have recognised them for what they are - a catalogue of lies."

Seddon was found guilty of murder and attempted murder and will be sentenced on 28 March.