Young killers of Shrewsbury busker Ben Bebbington face up to life behind bars

Stewart Doran, 22, and Bradley Davies, 18, repeatedly kicked and stamped on the head and torso of 43-year-old Ben Bebbington last September.

The pair were jailed for life at Birmingham Crown Court yesterday.

Doran and Davies carried out two separate attacks minutes apart, in which Mr Bebbington was kicked down some concrete steps, hit over the head with a bottle, stamped on repeatedly while lying on the ground and hit with a bicycle.

He was left for dead by the pair and died in hospital the following day after sustaining brain injuries.

Doran, of Bainbridge Green, Harlescott, will serve a minimum term of 16 years, while Davies, of Westering, Shrewsbury, will have to serve at least 14 years before he can be considered for parole.

Judge William Davis QC said the pair had used 'sustained and gratuitous violence' in the course of two attacks on Mr Bebbington which occurred within minutes of each other. Doran swore loudly as he was sent down and said his sentence was a 'joke'.

Mr Bebbington was attacked by Doran and Davies on the night of September 6 last year on a footpath close to Ditherington Road.

The court heard Doran kicked him down a flight of concrete stairs and hit Mr Bebbington over the head with a bottle, before both him and Davies stamped on the busker's head.

They returned to the scene minutes later, where a second brutal attack led by Doran occurred. Mr Bebbington was not discovered for several hours and died in the hospital on the morning of September 7 from a bleed on the brain.

Judge Davis said: "Ben Bebbington was a man of 43 who had never done anybody any harm, who had at times a sad life, but at other times a full life. He touched the lives of many people in Shrewsbury for good.

"On this night he was perhaps at one of his lower points, very drunk and not in a good way."

He said Doran and Davies had 'picked on' a vulnerable man in two separate and violent assaults, before attempting to cover up the evidence of their actions.

"Having discovered the next morning that having left him lying in a heap, he had in fact died, you set about concealing what you had done," he told the defendants.

Judge Davis said Doran, who has previous convictions for violence, including assault occasioning actual bodily harm, had been the instigator of the attack, with Davies following his lead.

But he said Davies had played a 'significant part' in Mr Bebbington's death.

He said Doran would have been ordered to serve a minimum term of 19 years, but was given credit for his early guilty plea.

Meanwhile, the family of Ben Bebbington today thanked police for bringing his killers to justice.

Ben's sister Karen Higgins said: "As a whole family we cannot praise and thank the police enough for ensuring the perpetrators of this horrific attack were brought to justice but especially for demonstrating so clearly that they have respect for each and every human life, they have shown Ben so much dignity and respect in the way in which they carried out their investigations and supported the family.

"We also know that the emergency services did everything they could to save Ben when he was found and to them we also offer our thanks for caring for him in his final hours."

She said the family had been comforted by the public support in Shrewsbury for the Big Busk, a musical event arranged in memory of Ben on April 6 this year on what would have been his 44th birthday.

"The Big Busk showed us all that is great about society and our lovely town, it is without any doubt that the support we received for the event have made this whole experience easier to deal with," she said.

Detective Inspector Andy Parsons, who lead the investigation into Mr Bebbington's death, said he hoped the convictions would bring some comfort to the murdered man's family. "The brutal and savage attack was both shocking in its ferocity and the fact it was completely unprovoked," he said.

"Having chased him along a dark pathway, Doran and Davies knocked him to the ground and subjected him to a sustained assault involving repeated stamps to the head, before leaving him to die."

See also - Shrewsbury mother jailed for two years over attempt to cover up son's crime