A 41-year-old man from Helmond has been jailed for 20 years for the ‘cold-blooded killing’ of his 67-year-old father for his money.

The body of Bart Hillen was found in a Helmond canal last May, wrapped in plastic sheeting. A week later his son was arrested after police spotted him driving in his father’s car.

The son claimed in court that he thought his father was going away for a couple of days with a woman he met online and claimed to have waved him off on the trip.

However, Bart Hillen was wearing his night clothes when found, and his false teeth were still at his house, the court was told. The online chats he was said to have had belonged to fake accounts and had been altered after his disappearance to include a meeting.

The court ruled the son had been after his father’s money. He had made online searches about how to open safes like the one owned by his father, which was found to be empty after the death.

He had also researched how to make bodies disappear, stab someone without leaving blood traces and how to buy a new identity.