A FORMER Northfield Infant School pupil has been cleared of a murder which involved the victim being tortured with a red-hot poker.
Corrina Lowe, 28, stood trial at the Old Bailey, in London alongside two other people charged with the murder of Anthony Bates. All three denied murder.
Following the trial which spanned several weeks Miss Lowe, who gave her address as no fixed abode, was acquitted by the jury while her co-accused - Gary Speight, 31, and Dean Swift, 44 - were found guilty and jailed for life.
Anthony Bates, 36, was found dead at a flat where Speight was squatting on Fentiman Road, in Vauxhall, London on Tuesday February 1 last year. He had been beaten, burnt with a hot poker and boiling sugar, and cut with a knife.
The court heard that Mr Bates had become involved with the ex-partner of Speight while he was in prison and he bore a grudge against the victim as a result.
Speight, of Vauxhall Bridge Road, Pimlico, Central London will serve a minimum of 30 years while Swift, of no fixed address, will serve at least 28 years in prison.
Judge Charles Byers told the pair: “Anyone who listened to the evidence in this case could come to no other conclusion than that this was a brutal and callous murder.
“Committed over a long period during the course of one day, and causing the deceased Anthony Bates to die in what was described by one expert witness as exquisite pain, I’m quite satisfied that you tortured him and that you tortured him for your own sadistic pleasure.”
He went on: “I’m satisfied you Gary Speight when in drink are a reckless and dangerous bully, and Dean Swift that you behaved in a depraved manner given an encouragement to torture, and that you relayed to one witness that you really enjoyed it.”
Prosecutor Brian Altman QC said a number of alcoholics had gone to the flat and witnessed the ordeal. One had recorded the victim’s screams on his mobile phone.
Mr Bates had started a relationship with a woman a few months before but learnt later that Speight, her previous boyfriend, was angered by their affair.
He returned to his father’s home in Stoke-on-Trent for a few days, saying he had to leave London because people were after him, the court heard.
Mr Altman said Mr Bates told his sister that the man had been released from prison “and was threatening to kill him”.
The judge told the jury that there must have been times “when you have wondered whether you would ever get over some of the things that you heard”. He excused them from doing jury service for the next 10 years.
Speaking after the verdicts CPS London Reviewing Lawyer Navnit Dosanjh said: “Mr Bates was brutalised and physically abused until he eventually died from his injuries. As part of this repeated and persistent torture the victim was stamped on, punched and kicked and he also sustained burn injuries from the use of a hot poker.
“There were also cutting wounds to his neck. Speight was the ring leader in the attack, but Swift was a willing accomplice, assisting in the torture. I hope these successful convictions provide some small comfort to the family of Mr Bates.”
Miss Lowe was sleeping rough in a derelict building on the outskirts of Driffield town centre in early 2009. She said at the time that she and her partner had moved to Driffield from London in the hope of finding somewhere safe and warm to live.
Miss Lowe is originally from Bridlington but came to live in Driffield - where she had family and attended school at Northfield - to avoid the embarrassment of sleeping rough in her home town. Miss Lowe later returned to live at an address in Driffield with a family member.