Buzzin Disgrace

A 13-year-old boy was jailed yesterday for an indefinite period after battering a vulnerable young man to death and then throwing the body onto a bonfire on the 6th November 2007.

Jamie Smith was said to be high on Cider and Vodka when he murdered Stephen Croft, 34-years-old, in the early hours after Guy Fawkes’ night.

Smith already had 11 previous convictions, which included robbery and assault, and at the time of the killing had run away from a care home.  He had been taken into care when his father, Gerald Murphy, 31-years-old, was arrested and jailed for a minimum of 11 years in January 2007.  Murphy, had been convicted of a vicious attack on an Asian market trader in his own home, which left the victim paralysed from the neck down.

Murphy, had broken into the 63-year-old victims flat, and beat the man while his accomplice, a 15-year-old boy from Birkenhead, stole nearly £300 from the victim who lay almost dead on the floor.  Bashir Ahmed, spent weeks fighting for his life in hospital and although now he is out of the coma he is paralysed from the neck down.

The judge told Smith that he posed a “very high risk of harm to the public” and ordered that he spent a minimum of 13 years before being eligible for parole.  Smith had run away from the care home before and would usually return to his family home, but on the 5th November when the care workers went to collect him after a call from his family, he became aggressive and threatened to set off a firework in one of the care workers car and then ran off.  He attended a community bonfire night where he met Mr Croft, who had a drink problem since losing his job after an industrial accident.

By 1am, Mr Croft was extremely drunk and very vulnerable and the prosecutor, David Turner QC said “Smith decided to take advantage of his drunken condition and murdered him while he was helpless, repeatedly kicking him and punching him.  At the end of the attack the defendant believed the deceased was dead, as indeed he was, and it was therefore a sustained attack on a helpless man.  He took from the body some rolling tobacco, cigarette papers and a lighter and put the body onto the fire in the hope that fire damage would conceal his crime.”

After committing the murder, Smith went to the local YMCA and told staff that there was “Someone stuck in the fire” and that he had tried to save them.  However, the opposite were true and the  police arrested Smith who gave the officers a false name and denied any part of the murder.  He pleaded guilty to murder after Mr Croft’s blood was found on his clothing.

Mr Croft’s sister, Sarah said that the 13-year minimum sentence was too lenient and that “hanging was too good” for Smith who’s parents had “dragged him up to be a monster.  The punishment for such a violent, mindless crime, is for him [Smith] to know he will be fed, watered, protected, educated and supposedly rehabilitated - all at the taxpayers expense.  All this for him to out bigger, stronger and just as evil.”

Another vicious criminal raised by an even more vicious father, that’s all they know, they have no conscience or remorse for anyone.  They are given no discipline at home and so won’t accept being told what to do by anyone else.  They have no respect for authority.  Bring back the death penalty, the sooner the better.