Two guilty of bodybuilder murder

An AK-47 rifle was fired 26 times at David King

Two men have been convicted of the murder of a bodyguard.

Roger Vincent, 33, of Penn, Bucks and David Smith, 33, of Elstree were found guilty at Luton Crown Court of the murder of bodybuilder Dave King.

Father-of-two Mr King, 32, died on 3 October 2003 in an "execution-style" killing after underworld rumours he was a police informant.

Mr King, of Stevenage, Herts, was shot with an AK-47 assault rifle as he left a gym in Hoddesdon.

Co-defendant Julian Elfes was convicted of assisting an offender.

A fourth man, Jason Attridge, was cleared of murder.

Life sentence

Vincent was given a life sentence and told he must serve a minimum of 30 years before he can be considered for parole.

Mr Justice Wilkie told Vincent: "This was a thoroughly planned, ruthless and brutally executed assassination.

"It was committed in a public street in day time and involved an automatic firearm and it is only by great good fortune that no other passers-by were seriously injured or worse."

Smith, 33, who had driven a stolen Peugeot Boxer van from which he fired the weapon, was told he must serve a minimum of 25 years.

Mr Justice Wilkie said Vincent had carried out the contract killing at the behest of "others" not before the court.

After Mr King's death police discovered he had been heavily involved in crime and established that that was the link to his murder.

'Wanted justice'

The prosecution said he died because he had made enemies amongst his former associates, probably because they thought he was a police or customs and excise informer.

Detective Inspector Paul Maghie, of Hertfordshire Police, paid tribute to his team's "painstaking" investigation after the verdict on Tuesday and said the success was down to "old fashioned detective skills".

He said: "This has been a long and painstaking investigation finding the truth about what happened to David King.

"Clearly he was a criminal but he had children, he had a wife and family and we wanted justice for them.