Man was bludgeoned to death hours after meeting his killer

A 40-year-old Shropshire man bludgeoned a Shrewsbury man to death at the victim's home just hours after the two men had met for the first time at a late night shop, a court has heard.

The battered body of Wesley Morris, 30, who had suffered 75 separate injuries, was discovered in the lounge of his Harlescott flat by his mother later the same day.

A tea-tray, a mirror, and possibly a vacuum cleaner may have been used in the vicious and sustained assault on Mr Morris.

At Stafford Crown Court yesterday Shawn Heath Adams was given an indeterminate jail term after he admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

Adams, of The Paddocks, Bicton Heath, Shrewsbury, had denied murdering Mr Morris in October last year and the pleas were accepted by the court.

Judge Stephen Tonking said that he had to impose a jail term for the public's protection and Adams would serve a minimum of seven-and-a-half years before any consideration of parole on licence.

The judge said he had taken into consideration that Adams, who had previous convictions for violence, had an emotional and unstable disorder.

The court heard that Mr Morris, who lived alone at the flat in Lancaster Road, was a homosexual and Adams claimed that it was the victim's unwanted sexual advances that led to the attack.