‘Coward’ beat man to death
A ‘COWARDLY’ killer has been jailed for life after beating a father to death before enlisting the help of his 70-yearold neighbour to help him cover it up.
Martin McBrine launched the ‘sickening’ and ‘brutal’ attack against Lee McConnell, 49, as the pair spent the night drinking at McBrine’s Rochdale home.
The 49-year-old killer, for reasons which remain unknown, inflicted catastrophic injuries on his ‘defenceless’ victim – thought to be caused by kicking or stamping.
As Mr McConnell lay dying on McBrine’s kitchen floor, he did not call for the help of paramedics or police.
Instead, Manchester Crown Court heard, he visited his 70-year-old nextdoor neighbour and close friend, Harry Mee. He told Mee that he ‘had done it again’ and that he had ‘let some reprobates into his house.’ McBrine and his ‘totally wicked’ neighbour, then worked together to try and cover up the killing on Saturday, August 11, last year, the court was told. The pair even hatched a plot to drag Mr McConnell’s body into the middle of the road to make it look he had been run over – but their plan failed and their lies were eventually unravelled by a jury. McBrine, of Palatine Street, was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 14 years and 159 days, after being convicted of Mr McConnell’s murder. Mee, also of Pala- tine Street, was sentenced to two years and six months after being convicted of assisting an offender.
Their homes on Palatine Street, a culde-sac in the Firgrove area of Rochdale are not connected, but they are virtually next-door neighbours, the properties separated by a footpath.
McBrine’s defence lawyer, Benjamin Nolan QC, told the court that his client had only intended to cause serious harm, rather than to kill Mr McConnell.
“There was a complete lack of premeditation and he had no intention to kill,” Mr Nolan said.
Sentencing, His Honour Judge David Stockdale QC said: “You subjected him to a prolonged and violent beating.
“This was a cowardly attack sustained over a period of time on a defenceless man – he was entirely at your mercy.”
Jailing Mee, Judge Stockdale said: “As Lee lay motionless on the kitchen floor dying or dead you went about the task of staging a cover-up.”