The Misery Machine - The Horrifying Case of Brian Waters

Episode Date: September 28, 2026

This week, Drewby and Yergy head to Burnt House Farm in Tabley, near Knutsford, Cheshire, UK, to discuss the case of Brian Waters. Brian was a 44-year-old Cannabis farmer who was tortured for four hours and systematically beaten to death in front of his adult children over a £20,000 drugs debt. Brian operated an illicit cannabis cultivation site at Burnt House Farm. A dispute over money arose between him and a drug dealer named John Wilson. On the day of the murder, a gang ambushed the farm. Brian and his farm assistant, Suleman Razak, were tied up, beaten with a metal bar, assaulted with staple guns, and suspended upside down from roof rafters into barrels of liquid. Both were burned with phosphoric acid. Brian suffered 123 external injuries and died at the scene. Suleman survived the ordeal. The attackers tracked down Brian's 25-year-old son, Gavin, and 21-year-old daughter, Natalie, forcing them to watch the torture. The gang also abducted his wife, Julie, from their home and drove her to the farm. Although three men were ultimately arrested in the attack, another man, Christopher Guest More Jr., fled the UK, spent 16 years on the run.⛽Download the FREE Upside App here https://yt.link/X1QLMT2 and use code Misery25 to get an extra 25 cents back per gallon on your first tank of gas! Thank you Upside for sponsoring this video!Support Our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/themiserymachineJoin Our Facebook Group: https://t.co/DeSZIIMgXs?amp=1PayPal: https://www.paypal.me/themiserymachineOfficial Merch Store: https://miserymachine-shop.fourthwall.com/Instagram: miserymachinepodcastTwitter: misery_podcast#documentary #themiserymachine #truecrime 🚨 EDUCATIONAL, DOCUMENTARY, SCIENTIFIC, OR ARTISTIC CONTENT DISCLAIMER 🚨CONTENT WARNING: THIS VIDEO IS ABOUT A SENSITIVE TOPIC INVOLVING LOSS OF LIFE. WE'VE REMOVED ANY GRAPHIC CONTENT TO COMPLY WITH YOUTUBE'S GUIDELINES. WE AIM TO PROVIDE INFORMATIVE, FACTUAL JOURNALISM ON A TRAGIC EVENT IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST THAT DOES NOT DISMISS ITS SERIOUSNESS. ALL CLIPS ARE USED UNDER THE DOCTRINE OF FAIR USE FOR NEWS REPORTING AND ANALYSIS.Fair Use Disclaimer: "Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for 'fair use' for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use."THE CONTENT IN THIS VIDEO IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY, BASED ON BELIEVED RELIABLE SOURCES. THEY MAY NOT BE CURRENT OR FULLY ACCURATE. VIEWERS SHOULD DO THEIR OWN RESEARCH AND NOT SOLELY RELY ON THIS INFORMATION. WE'RE NOT LIABLE FOR ANY INACCURACIES OR OMISSIONS. WE DO NOT CONDONE, ENDORSE, OR ENCOURAGE ANY OF THE BEHAVIORS OR ACTIVITIES SHOWN. WE URGE EVERYONE TO ALWAYS ACT RESPONSIBLY AND WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THE LAW.

Brian Waters grew up in North Wales before eventually settling in Nantwich, a small market town in the northwest of England. He built a life there with his wife, Julie, and their two children, a son named Gavin and a daughter named Natalie. He was described by those who knew him as a dedicated and caring man who was loving and loyal to his family. His daughter referred to him as a hippie who enjoyed smoking cannabis and relaxing with friends. By the early 2000s, Brian was running a cannabis operation. His principal business was in the Netherlands. He traveled there regularly, brokering deals and moving his product through context he had built up over the years. In June of 2002, he set up a second grow operation in England with a friend named Johnny Majid.

The location they chose was a derelict property called Burnt House Farm on the A556 near the village of Tably Cheshire. Because Brian was often away in the Netherlands, he needed someone to tent the crops and keep the farm running. He recruited his son Gavin, who was then in his early 20s, as well as 19-year-old Suleiman Razek, the stepson of his business partner. Brian had kept the farm's location secret, even from the people he was dealing with professionally. One of Brian's contacts was a Manchester-based drug dealer named John Wilson. Those who knew the criminal landscape in Greater Manchester described him as a notorious gangster. He and Brian had done deals together, and Brian had brokered connections for him through his Dutch contacts, but that relationship had soured over time.

In late 2002, Brian was robbed at gunpoint in Manchester. The debt he already carried with John Wilson grew, and by 2003, Brian owed him 20,000 British pounds. John was not the kind of man who absorbed a loss of that size. He was the kind of man who decided to make an example of someone who owed him that kind of money. To do that, he needed to find the farm. And to find the farm, he turned to a man he had been supplying with Coke as part of an ongoing arrangement. That man was Christopher Gessmore Jr. Christopher was 25 years old at the time of the events of today's story.

His family lived on a gated estate and Lynn. where different houses on the property were owned by different members of the Moore family. When he left school, he joined the family business, which was later described as operating in the world of surveillance and intelligence gathering. By his mid-20s, he had built a resume that would have impressed anybody in that line of work. Christopher had gone undercover inside an organized crime gang on a housing estate in Wolverhampton. It infiltrated a far-right movement nodding him. He had done undercover television work alongside journalists,

Donald McIntyre and contributed to Channel 4's dispatches, a long-running investigative documentary program. His cousin was a man named James Raven, also a covert TV operative, who had worked on BBC programs alongside him, including McIntyre uncovered and Crooked Britain, which specialized in deep cover infiltration work. BBC producers knew he had a prior conviction for violence, but believed that he was reformed, and as you'll soon find out, he actually wasn't. So when John Wilson needed a surveillance professional to locate a secret weed farm,

Christopher was a natural fit. Whether he was operating in genuine undercover journalist mode, as he would later claim, or whether he was simply a willing participant in John's criminal operation is not clear. But what isn't in dispute is what he decided to do when he found Brian. On June 10, 2003, Christopher parked outside the Waters family, home and waited. When Gavin Waters drove away, Christopher was right behind him, all the way to burnt house farm and Tabley. While Gavin was there, Christopher was in contact with John. He had found the farm. When West Jet first took flight in 1996, the vibes were a bit different. People thought

denim on denim was peak fashion, inline skates were everywhere, and two out of three women rocked, the Rachel. While those things stayed in the 90s, one thing that hasn't is that fuzzy feeling you get when WestJet welcomes you on board. Here's to WestJetting since 96. Travel back in time with us and actually travel with us at westjet.com slash 30 years. Over the following days, the planning intensified. Christopher stayed in regular contact with John Wilson and James Raven. A horse trailer was purchased for 650 British pounds, which was big enough to load stolen cannabis equipment into. Christopher and Otis Matthews, who was another member of John Wilson's crew, were present for the purchase. Meanwhile, on the evening of June 16th, Brian and Julie flew back to Liverpool from

the Netherlands. Their kids picked him up from the airport and drove them home to Nantwich. On June 18th, the horse trailer was moved to the parking lot of a pub called Barn Owl and Lim, not far from Christopher's house on Burford Lane Farm. That same evening, the Waters family held a small party for Natalie's 21st birthday. That same night, Otis Matthews stayed over at Christopher's house. They had drinks and talked until after midnight. We'll be back in just one minute. Please stick around for the following ad. It not only supports the channel, but it also supports charities in our area. This week's episode has been brought to you by Upside, a free app that helps everyday people earn real cash back on purchases they're already making, such as gas, groceries and dining.

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We love Upside and we know you will too. Upside has given back $1 billion to its users. To find out how much you could earn, download the free Upside app and use promo code Misery 25 to get an extra 25 cents back for every gallon on your first tank of gas. That's an extra 25 cents back for every gallon on your first tank of gas using promo code Misery 25. So what are you waiting for? Click the link in the description now and use. promo code Misery 25 to get an extra 25 cents back for every gallon on your first tank of gas. Thanks and back to the episode. Somewhere in the early hours of June 19th, Christopher and Otis woke up at the house and

limb. Where they left, they deliberately left their cell phones behind. It was a choice to leave no signal of where they were going that morning. The gang, which included Christopher, Otis, James, and others assembled before dawn and drove out to burnt house farm in Tabley. While the farm was empty, they went to work. They stripped out the dried cannabis and loaded it and the growing equipment into the horse trailer. James drove the trailer to a parking lot near Christopher's house, dropped it and returned to the farm. The others stayed behind. While they waited, they killed time by trashing the place.

Around 10.30 in the morning, Suleiman Razat called the Waters family from a pay phone. He spoke to Gavin and said he would be at the farm around noon. But when he arrived, Suleiman was grabbed from a... behind before he could even understand what was happening. He later counted six attackers, at least two warbolic clavas. They punched and kicked him in the face and back repeatedly until he lost consciousness. He came around, he was being dragged towards one of the outbuildings. Said later he was scared for his life and felt close to passing out again. See rope and wire hanging from the ceiling of what he now recognized as a cow shed. His hands were

duct tape in front of him. His ankles were tied with blue rope and he was lifted and suspended upside down from the rafters. A barrel was placed beneath him and water began filling it. They lowered him in. The water rose over his face as he started to thrash and he felt what he described as something like an electric shock moving through the water. The attackers laughed and said, do you want me to drown you now? They pulled him back up and placed him on the floor. Something was poured onto his back that burned on.

He thought it was acid, and it was. Phosphoric acid, which is a fertilizer used in cannabis cultivation, caustic enough to scar human tissue. One of the attackers said this stuff is wicked. Suleiman was put in a chair, and tape was wound around his chest in the chair back. His ankles were roped to the chair legs. Pillow case was placed over his head, sprayed with something and set on fire, but it didn't fully catch because the fabric was still wet from the barrel. A staple gun was used on his feet and across his body. His t-shirt was stapled to his own skin. His injuries included lacerations, puncture wounds, bruises, and abrasions across his entire body.

A torn left ear, numerous staples embedded in his skin, a fractured nose, a fractured handbone, and a large area of burned and scarred skin on his back from the acid. He has said that nearly every day since June 19th of 2003, he suffers flashback. About an hour into Solomon's ordeal, the sliding door of the cow shed opened. Brian Waters had arrived at Burnt House Farm. The attackers dragged him inside. They beat him with bamboo canes with such force that the cane snapped. They struck him in the back and stomach with a metal bar, then inserted it inside of him.

The bar had been forced in far enough to strike the base of his spine. They suspended him upside down from the same beam and lowered him into the barrel. Phosphoric acid was poured onto his back and a trash bag was hung above his head and then set on fire. The melting plastic dripped down all over his skin. This ordeal lasted over three hours. At around 2 p.m., Brian's phone rang inside of the cow shed. It was Natalie trying to reach her dad. Suleiman, who was still taped to his chair, was ordered to answer it and tell her to come down.

He did, as he was told. A short time later, Natalie and Gavin pulled into the farm. They had dropped their father off there that morning and spent the day giving rides home to friends from the birthday party the night before. They had no reason to think that anything was wrong. They walked toward the farmhouse and the men in Balaclava's were on them before they reached the door. Several of them pounced on Gavin and he was dragged towards the cow shed. Natalie was hauled by her hair through the milking parlor and into the cow shed. She was asked, where's the money?

A man pressed his full weight down onto her face. They taped her hands, covered her mouth, and roped her hands and feet. Gavin had a rope placed around his neck. He was beaten and kicked all over his body and eventually suspended from a beam. Later said that he was drifting in and out of consciousness for what felt like two or three hours. A pillowcase was placed over Natalie's head. She was threatened with a knife and a barrel of a gun was placed inside her mouth. She was also threatened with S.A.

Through the pillowcase, she could see her father. He was taped to a chair. His chest was covered in bruises. His face was covered in blood. She could also see Suleiman in a chair to her left with a cover over him. Brian saw his children being attacked. He begged the men to stop. He said, I'll give you whatever you want.

But he received no way. reply. While this was happening at the farm, two members of the gang drove to the Waters family home where Julie was alone inside. They broke in and pulled her to the floor. They told her they had come for the money. They went through the wardrobes and cupboards and asked for 20,000 pounds. She told them there was no money in the house and one of the men told her, your husband has upset a lot of people. She was handed a cell phone. She could hear Natalie's voice in the background. Men then put Julie in the back of the car and covered her with the Welled.

Back at the cow shed at burnt house farm, Brian asked his attackers to loosen his restraints. He said he couldn't breathe. He later died in front of his son and daughter after they witnessed his torture. Brian was essentially tortured to death. I'll have Drewby read the specifics for me when we get into the autopsy report it. Sounds straight out of a horror movie. Brian's body was cut loose and dragged into the adjacent milking parlor and left. on the floor. At 406 in the afternoon, a call came into the police from a payphone near the farm.

John Wilson had ordered his driver David Moran to make it. John told him to disguise his voice and say that three men were beating someone up at a courtyard. Here is the transcript. Hello, police. I've just come off the M6 from Manchester Airport. I'm not sure of the junction. Is it 18? Going towards Northwich. Is it the A556? I got there in the first farm on the right hand side. It was about 500 yards. It looked like there were three men beating somebody up in the courtyard. It didn't look nice at all. So if you come off at Junction 18 and take the A556, it's 19, that one actually, I think. 19, yeah. About 500 yards on the right going towards Northwich. There's a farm yard. It looked like there were three gentlemen or three men attacking

a man. How long ago was that? About five minutes. Okay, so what's your name, please? I'd rather not get involved. That's okay. I'll look into it for you. Police arrived at Burnt House Farm minutes later as the gang fled across the neighboring fields. James was found nearby. The other men, including Christopher and Otis, made it out through the fields and back to Christopher's house, arriving around midnight. Inside the cow shed, police found Gavin, Natalie, and Soleiman, tied up and injured, but alive. Brian's body was found in the milking parlor.

In a bag left behind at the cowshed, investigators found a red bull can, seven cigarette butts, a glove, a piece of material that had been used as toilet paper, and a bag containing human waste. All of it carried Christopher's DNA. Brian's autopsy was conducted the following day by pathologist Dr. Allison Armour. She described the pain Brian had suffered before his death as excruciating. she documented 123 external injuries to his body the bruising across his chest

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They don't skip, they stay for hours. They don't move on, they manifest. They're not a demographic group, they're fans. Spotify advertising. You're among fans. ...back showed characteristic tram line marks. These are linear parallel contusions with a central undamaged zone. You commonly see this with blunt force trauma injuries

where someone has been hit with something cylindrical like a stick or a rod. Brian had 11 rib fractures on his left side and 15 on his right. His sternum was fractured. His nose was broken. There was bleeding on the surface of his brain. The sack around his heart was bruised. His left lung had collapsed and his right had filled up with blood. The phosphoric acid had burned his back.

The staple gun had been used across his head and body. The iron bar had torn his rectum and damaged the base of his spine. Brian Waters died from the effect of all of those injuries combined. In November of 2003, a man-feaset hunting in the fields behind burnthouse farm found a gold watch in the grass and gave it to police. It was identical to one reported missing from the Waters family home on June 19th. Someone had dropped it while running through those fields the afternoon that Brian died. November of 2004, 17 months after the murder, Cheshire Police conducted a major search of those

same fields. They found three black leather gloves and a balaclava. Five days after that on December 1st, using a metal detector, they found a knife and a fake gun. But why did it take 17 months to search a field that three of the attackers were seen running across while police were still at the scene? Well, that question never got a real answer. John Wilson, James Raven, and Otis Matthews were arrested in the months following Brian's murder. August of 2004, John Wilson, then 54, and James Raven, then 44, appeared at the Chester Crown Court, where they were both convicted of murdering Brian Waters

and two counts of conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm to Suleiman Razik. Then 27-year-old Otis Matthews was sent for retrial after the jury couldn't agree on a verdict for him. Justice Poole sentenced both John and James to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 24 years for the murder and 14 years concurrent for the conspiracy charges. He said the following. These crimes were exceptionally sadistic. violence used was both gratuitous and extreme and was characterized by the humiliation and degradation of Brian Waters before he died. Whatever your precise intention, no man could have survived those

injuries, and Brian Waters did not. With its overtones of greed, sadism, and torture, this was a very serious case. The 2004 trial was also notable for being one of the first in the UK to rely on data showing the approximate locations of phones by tracking which network towers they connected to. That technology helped establish the movements of the gang in the days leading up to the murder. Three years later in 2007, Otis Matthews was finally convicted at his fourth trial and sentenced to a minimum of 22 years in prison. That left Christopher Gessmore, Jr. Christopher left the UK on June 21st on an early morning flight from the Liverpool John Lennon Airport to Malaga, Spain. He traveled with his then-girlfriend who had no idea that he was involved in a

murder. She went on to meet friends in Abiza while he stayed in Malaga. His father, Christopher Gessmore Sr. flew out to join him on June 26. He brought his son a suitcase and a passport. A pair rented an apartment together. When Christopher Sr. returned to England, he brought his son's cell phone back with him. He made at least one further visit to Spain the following month. Christopher's mother also flew out. Christopher Gessmore Sr. was later convicted and sentenced to nine months in prison for assisting an offender. In October of 2004, a Chester Crown Court hearing disclosed that Cheshire Police had followed Christopher's parents to their son's apartment in Spain and observed him inside, but decided not to apply for a European arrest warrant.

They later said investigators had hoped Christopher might voluntarily fly back to England with his relatives, but he did not. A European arrest warrant was eventually issued in May of 2004, but it would not be executed for 15 years. Christopher spent roughly six months in Spain, then traveled to South Africa with a fake passport, then moved to Mozambique, then Turkey, and eventually settled in Malta. there, using a stolen identity of a man named Andrew Christopher Lamb, Christopher built a new life entirely. The real Andrew Lamb was an adult living in a nursing home. Christopher worked as a captain of luxury yachts, operating out of Porta Maso Harbor, where he negotiated important export deals. He was invited by members of the Moroccan royal family to work on the development of Tangier-Porten,

discussed arrangements to deliver goods to countries including Iran and Libya. He maintained a long-term girlfriend who had no idea that he was a wanted man. At the time of his arrest, he was living in a newly built apartment while driving a white Porsche Kyanne. In April of 2019, after almost 16 years on the run, Christopher was added to Europe's most wanted list. He was arrested on June 6, 2019 in the country of Malta. He told Maltese authorities his name was Andrew Lamb. He contested extradition and lost.

March 29th, 2020, he was returned to the UK. His first trial at Chester Crown Court began in March of 2021 and was halted on day three when a juror was discharged. His second trial in May of 2021 ended in the hung jury after 15 hours of deliberation. A retrial began in November of 2021. In December 9th, 2021, 18 years after Brian Waters was brutally murdered, a jury convicted Christopher of murder by a majority. of 10 to 2 after over 12 hours of deliberation. Now, we couldn't find the specifics as to why two jurors couldn't find him guilty or why the jury was hung on his previous trial, but the right verdict was reached in the end.

He was also found guilty of conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm to Suleiman Razik. He shook his head as the verdicts were read. Following day, he stood for sentencing before the Honorable Sir Peter Openshaw. The judge said, Brian Waters was a loyal and devoted husband and father, and his family will remember him as such. Then he described the attack in detail. He described how Brian had asked his attackers to loosen his restraints because he couldn't breathe. He said, it was too late to save him, and he died in front of his own children.

The memory of their ordeal and witnessing their father's murder is a burden which they must bear every day. It will cast a shadow over the rest of their lives. Christopher received life imprisonment with a minimum of 24 years. He received 14 additional years of the conspiracy charge to run concurrently. The judge credited 919 days already served in custody, 297 in Malta before extradition, and 622 in England. The judge said he had no doubt that going on the run for 16 years was a seriously aggravating factor. During all that time, the family. of Brian Waters and indeed Suleiman Razek or denied justice.

In 2023, Christopher filed an appeal, arguing the judge's summing up had been unbalanced in that late disclosure of evidence had compromised his case. Appeal was heard by Lord Justice James Dingamins, Justice Johanna Cuts, and Judge Nigel Lickley at the Royal Courts of Justice in London. In September of 2023, it was dismissed and his conviction still stands. After the verdict, the Waters family released a statement. It read in part, what happened at Burt House Farm on June 19, 2003, has had a significant and long-lasting effect on our family. We will never be able to forget events of that day, and even now,

more than 18 years down the line, we feel the pain on a daily basis with constant flashbacks. We have remained a close-knit family and have provided much-needed support to each other, but this has been an isolating experience for us. Not only have we lived in fear of reprisals, we have also struggled to trust others as we normally would. It's similar to the feelings people have experienced during the COVID crisis, not being able to leave their home and having to stay inside to feel safe. We have been living like that for more than 18 years,

but we never gave up hope, and the verdict today marks the end of an incredibly painful journey in our lives. In the weeks following Christopher's conviction, the Liverpool Echo published an investigation based on a retired Cheshire police officer's account, describing what he believed were missed opportunities that allowed Christopher to stay free for nearly two decades. On April 9, 2003, police were called to a residential address after reports that men had demanded 1,500 pounds in threatened trouble. Officers spotted a car nearby and attempted to stop it. The driver initially refused, but a second patrol car forced the vehicle to pull over. The driver was James Raven and the passenger was Christopher Gessmore Jr. Please search the car and found evidence linking both men to the threat.

Christopher was described as drunk and aggressive during the stop, and the former officer said, if these men had been arrested at the scene, their home addresses could have been searched. I think that guns and drugs would have been found, and both men would have been charged with serious offenses. And then there was what happened in Spain in 2004, which we discussed earlier. Cheshire Police issued a statement and response, which read, individual policy decisions were taken at the time of the incident and throughout the investigation by the original and subsequent senior investigating officers based on the information and evidence available to them at the time.

In close, we'd like to leave you with what Natalie shared in her victim impact statement, which was read to the court at Christopher sentencing. It said in part, and I quote, What happened has completely changed the life we led, and we have become insular. We had to move out of our family home and lived in constant fear of reprisals. We never knew if Christopher would be arrested.

Every single day, I have memories of what happened flash into my head. This can happen at any time day or night. Whenever I think about my dad and try to remember happy child, childhood memories, I always see the image of him sitting in the chair in the barn, suffering. I do not see an end to these flashbacks.