Life term over 'year later' death

Ronnie Cramb-Todd will serve a minimum of 15 years

A 34-year-old man has been found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment following the death of a man a year after he was attacked.

Gary Playle, 45, was found opposite a pub in Bedford in January 2006. He died in February 2007 having never regained consciousness, Luton Crown Court heard.

Ronnie Cramb-Todd, of Kempster Close, Bedford, was found guilty by a jury unanimously at Luton Crown Court.

Judge John Bevan passed a minimum jail term of 15 years on Cramb-Todd.

The court had previously heard medical experts describe how Mr Playle was found with injuries significant with having come "from stamping, kicking, falling from a significant height or being involved in a road traffic accident".

'Pride dented'

Jurors had heard how on 20 January 2006, Mr Playle, his partner Susan Williams and a mutual friend had got talking to the defendant in a pub before the group went to a nearby house to smoke cannabis.

Miss Williams told the jury how she was standing in the house talking to Cramb-Todd when he grabbed her.

The jury heard how Mr Playle witnessed it and became angry and threw him out of the house.

The prosecution said Cramb-Todd then attacked Mr Playle in the street outside because he was angry that Mr Playle had ejected him from the house.

As a result Mr Playle suffered massive head injuries which left him in a coma.

Sentencing Cramb-Todd, Judge Bevan told him: "You were slighted by what happened in the house - your pride was dented."

Kicking a man when he was down was bad enough and was the act of a coward, the judge said.

To stamp on a man's head was "worse still," he added.