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Mindless cowards receive life sentences

7/ 5/2008

THE two thugs who murdered Oldham grandparent James Smith have been branded "brainless and mindless" by a judge.

Sentencing the 62-year-old’s killers to life in prison, Mrs Justice Rafferty blasted the pair for lacking the basic humanity to make an anonymous call to the emergency services to tell them where their victim lay.

Mr Smith had been for a night out and was making his way home when he was targeted by Keith Buckley and Adrian Hutchinson who had been on a 90-minute robbery spree in Oldham centre last February. He was their fifth and final victim and paid with his life for standing up to the callous pair.

The loving dad and granddad – who worked as a security guard – was punched in the face and dragged into the yard of a derelict shop behind Gregson Street where he was threatened with a knife and then kicked in the head as he lay helpless on the ground.

Police believe the horrific attack took place because Mr Smith refused to tell the pair the PIN number for his cash card.

Left with a fractured skull, cheek, jaw, ribs and larynx, medical experts said that while his injuries were serious they would not necessarily have proved fatal if an ambulance had been called. It is thought he could have lived for anything between half an hour and an entire day before he died. His body was found 17 days later.

Sentencing the pair at Manchester Crown Court, Mrs Justice Rafferty said: "Anyone wanting to identify a perfect example of brainless, mindless thugs need look no further than you two.

"With nothing better to do than haunt the centre of Oldham on a rainy winter’s night the pair of you went on a spree of feckless violence. No thought for anybody but yourselves. Four young men streetwise enough to trade with you handed over their property when you threatened them. It may have saved their lives. James Smith was of a different generation and withstood you. He paid with his life as you beat and kicked him and left him in a sordid backyard. You did not even bother to use a mobile phone – you had one, you’d taken it from a victim – to ring anonymously for help."

"You are cowards. You lied your heads off when the police caught you."

Buckley, 21, of Goodwin Court, Chadderton, was ordered to serve at least 26 years before being considered for parole. Co-accused Adrian Hutchinson, 24, of Byland Avenue, Oldham – who has previous convictions and was described as the more dominant of the two – was ordered to serve at least 28 years.