Teen faces life in jail for torturing and dismembering boy

A TEENAGER was facing life in jail last night for torturing, strangling and dismembering a British schoolboy.

Matthew Welsh, 19, led his girlfriend and his best friend into a vicious assault on 14-year-old Adam Morrell in which he was punched, kicked and stamped on before being burned with boiling water mixed with sugar.

The young boy, whom Welsh had been teaching to fight after he complained of being bullied at school, was left with more than 280 injuries to his body following the three-hour attack.

Welsh’s girlfriend, Sarah Morris, 17, who admitted causing grievous bodily harm to the schoolboy, was convicted of deliberately attacking him during the prolonged assault He was later strangled to death, decapitated and chopped up limb by limb by 27-year-old Nathan Barnett, who pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility at an earlier hearing.

The gang were taking ecstasy, smoking cannabis and drinking on the night of the attack last November, which started when Adam began moaning about his girlfriend, the jury at Nottingham Crown Court heard.

Welsh, who was said to be the dominant member of the gang, admitted he punched the boy first, which sparked a prolonged attack, during which they each took it in turns to beat him.

He, along with Barnett and Morris, continued to attack the boy as he drifted in and out of consciousness and each time he fell to the floor of the house in Loughborough, they picked him up and beat him again.

A third teenager, Daniel Biggs, 19, who admitted he watched the assault but did not take part, was cleared by the jury of murder and causing grievous bodily harm.

The following day the court heard Adam was left looking “like an alien”, with his face almost unrecognisable after the beating.

Welsh, Biggs and Morris went to the funfair and while they were away Barnett mixed sugar and boiling water and poured it on the boy’s back and chest, causing horrific burns.

Morris claimed that as Adam lay on a mattress in the house where his three attackers lived in Havelock Street, he overheard the group discussing whether he should be killed.

Barnett later bought black plastic bags and tape and returned to the house where he announced he was going to kill Adam and then strangled the young boy to death.

Morris, who was only just 16 at the time of the offence, turned up the music to drown out the noise as Adam choked to death.

Barnett then put the body in the bath and began cutting it up with two saws Unsuspecting passersby later made the gruesome discoveries of the dismembered limbs in various parts of Loughborough while members of the gang frantically cleaned the house in an effort to hide the evidence.

The group persuaded Barnett to go to the police and admit to the killing and then concocted false account of events leading to the boy’s death.

All four have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

Cheers were heard from the public gallery as Welsh was found guilty of murder and Morris burst into tears in the dock as the verdicts were delivered by the jury.

Mr Justice Morland remanded the three teenagers in custody at the end of the three-week trial for sentencing later this month.