A DRUG addict from Northwich has been jailed for life for battering and stabbing a teenager to death.
Killer Ian Broughton, 28, attacked 17-year-old Rhys Butler in a drug den flat at Peckforton Way in Castle on May 27 last year, repeatedly smashing him over the head with a hammer and leaving him brain damaged and bleeding to death on the floor in May last year.
The former Witton Church Walk and Rudheath High pupil, of Priory Street, then stabbed the teenager twice in the back “to silence him”. He made “a token effort” to remove traces of his crime before fleeing on a mountain bike with cash and class A drugs stolen from Rhys’ dead body.
Broughton pleaded guilty to murdering the Speke teenager at Chester Crown Court on January 9. And today, Thursday, he was sentenced to a minimum of 22 years behind bars by Mrs Justice Swift.
The court heard Broughton had planned to attack Rhys, who dealt heroin and crack in Northwich, for at least a week, after the teenager had refused his request for drugs on credit.
Judge Swift said: “This is a tragic case. If ever a case exemplified the pain, destruction and tragedy which can be brought by drugs addiction, it’s this case.”
DCI Paul Rumney, who led the police case against Broughton, echoed her sentiments.
He said: “This investigation highlights the misery that drug dealing brings and the sentence reflects the disproportionate amount of violence used by Broughton in satisfying his own ends.”
For the full story see this week’s FREE Chronicle.
