‘God’s orders’ killers given life prison sentences

TWO prison inmates who murdered a convicted double killer after being “ordered by God” to break his neck have been handed life sentences.

Billy White, a Christian, and Muslim Gary Lindley prayed after the preplanned killing of Brett Rogers, which they believed would “exorcise a demon” from him and “cleanse” him of his crimes. Worcester Crown Court was told staff at HMP Long Lartin were then handed a note saying the killers had decided to “free” their victim from “darkness”.

White, aged 24, was given a whole life term for the killing - carried out while he was already serving a life sentence for the 2015 murder of his partner. Judge Robert Juckes QC heard that White was jailed for at least 15 years at the Old Bailey in May 2016 after murdering his partner by stabbing her through the neck as she slept at home in Hayes, west London.

Lindley, aged 42, was serving an indeterminate sentence after being jailed at Nottingham Crown Court in 2007 for his part in a violent distraction burglary. Ordering Lindley to serve a minimum term of 17-and-ahalf years for killing Rogers, Judge Juckes ruled that the prisoner’s murder had not been committed in the “furtherance of a religious cause”.

The judge said White and Lindley who pleaded guilty to murder at an earlier hearing - had admitted in police interviews they had decided to kill Mr Rogers a week before his death.