Body dumped in road by friends

An ex-bartender dumped his friend’s dead body outside his flat after a drug binge instead of calling 999.

Justin Lovatt and his accomplice waited several hours before dragging Kevin Sampson’s body onto the street in Margate.

The 47-year-old was sentenced to nine months suspended for perverting the course of justice for the “disgraceful and unusual” crime.

Canterbury Crown Court heard Mr Sampson and friends Lovatt and Christopher Handley were taking a concoction of drugs at Lovatt’s home when the scene became sinister.

Mr Sampson, 44, slumped forward when Lovatt and Handley left for pizza – when they returned he was dead.

After attempting CPR the duo waited until nightfall before dragging Mr Sampson’s dead body around the corner for someone else to find. A motorist soon spotted the body and called paramedics, who pronounced Mr Sampson dead at the scene. Lovatt denied any knowledge of the crime when interviewed, prosecutor Dickon Reid said. But both men at a later date confessed to moving Mr Sampson’s body after being interviewed under police caution for suspected manslaughter.

Judge Catherine Brown told the former Canterbury College student his behaviour, which he claimed was down to panicking, was “inexcusable”.

“You decided to distance yourselves from his death by dragging his body out on the street,” she said. “What you and Mr Handley did was inexcusable.” A guilt-racked Handley has since taken his own life.