Teenager jailed for killing 'abuser'

Michael Brooks cut the body up in the bath

A teenager who admitted killing a baker he claimed had sexually abused him for years has been jailed for seven years.

Michael Brooks, 19, admitted chopping off his victim's head at the flat they shared in Blackpool and leaving it in a car boot.

He claimed bakery worker David Staunton was a predatory paedophile.

Brooks, from Coney Hill Road, Gloucester, was cleared of murder at a hearing on Thursday but had previously admitted manslaughter.

David Staunton: A "predatory paedophile"

The 19-year-old admitted losing control and stabbing Mr Staunton before cutting up the body into four pieces in the bath at their flat in Grasmere Road.

Mr Staunton's head was found by Brooks' mother.

The teenager told the court the 36-year-old baker was the most powerful person in his life with total influence over him.

He said that Mr Staunton had once lived across the road from Fred and Rose West in Cromwell Street in Gloucester.

"He said he knew the West's well and got on with them. It made me scared," Brooks told the court.

The jury at Preston Crown Court heard Mr Staunton had been jailed for abducting Brooks from a children's home when he was 11-years-old.

Rex Ted QC, defending, said the teenager's life had been wrecked by Mr Staunton who had corrupted him.

The trial judge, Mr Justice Leveson, said he accepted Brooks had been sexually abused by Mr Staunton.

"He robbed you of your childhood," he said.