A BRIGHT pupil turned killer from Ellesmere Port has been described as 'the brains’ behind desperate plans to release her and her boyfriend from the grip of the debt collector they eventually killed.
Rachael Horton, 20, was sentenced at Liverpool Crown Court to eight years in a young offenders institute for the manslaughter of Martin Ithell.
Throughout the trial the prosecution described the former Sutton High School and West Cheshire College student as the driving force behind the couple’s initial plans to commit an armed robbery to solve their debt problems.
At one point Horton was seeking out false registration plates for the robbery, possibly at Hapsford services – where her then boyfriend Scott Davidson used to work – and admitted she was prepared to be the getaway driver.
She will serve half her sentence.
Davidson was jailed alongside her for life and will serve at least 30 years for murder.
Horton achieved nine GCSEs from Sutton High School, also excelling at sport, and later studied for a BTEC sports diploma at West Cheshire College.
Horton, who has one brother and three sisters and was brought up by parents Russell and Sheila in Hawthorn Road, Little Sutton, was discharged from a brief spell in the Army due to a series of minor ailments.
Her leaving statement, which described her as ‘being fazed by very little’, was cited by the prosecution as evidence she was capable of being cool and calculating.
She met Davidson when she started working as a barmaid at Destiny and Elite in Cheshire Oaks, where he was a doorman.
Horton earned a modest income in a part-time telesales job for a Deeside bed firm but their combined income was insufficient to fund their lifestyle.
She called her boyfriend ‘Daddy G’, with ‘G’ standing for gangster, and joked she saw herself as a gangster’s wife.
But Davidson, who has indicated his intention to appeal his conviction, was leading a double life. He had a secret girlfriend, Francesca Whaling, 28, from Church Lawton.
