'Savage' killer jailed for life

(Top) Nathan Barnett(l), Daniel Biggs (bottom) Matthew Welsh, Sarah Morris

A policeman's son who led a "barbaric" gang attack on a schoolboy before deciding he should be killed, has been jailed for life.

Matthew Welsh, 19, was ordered to serve at least 20 years for the murder of 14-year-old Adam Morrell in Loughborough, Leicestershire.

The judge at the sentencing hearing on Wednesday said Welsh and the rest of the gang lacked humanity.

Adam was punched, kicked and stamped on by the group of friends, doused in boiling water mixed with sugar, then strangled and cut into pieces in the bath.

Welsh's girlfriend, 17-year-old Sarah Morris, was jailed for four years after she was cleared of murder, but convicted of deliberately attacking the schoolboy.

Multiple injuries

His best friend, Nathan Barnett, 27, was ordered to be detained indefinitely in secure accommodation under the Mental Health Act, after he pleaded guilty to the boy's manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

Daniel Biggs, 19, who was cleared of murder and inflicting grievous bodily harm on Adam but admitted to conspiring to pervert the course of justice, was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in custody.

Adam's body parts were scattered around Loughborough

Mr Justice Morland, passing sentence at Nottingham Crown Court, said: "Adam Morrell... was befriended by you four.

"Befriended is a totally inappropriate word to describe the callous manner in which he was treated with barbaric cruelty.

"When the Loughborough fair was in full swing, for two hours and probably several hours longer, he was repeatedly assaulted, kicked, punched and stamped on.

"He sustained multiple injuries so that he was almost unrecognisable.

"None of you had the basic decency to stop the prolonged savagery of the beating or the humanity to see he got medical help."