Boys get two years for killing man, 67

FIVE boys aged 12 to 14 were locked up for two years each yesterday for killing a pensioner as he played cricket with his teenage son.

Ernest Norton, 67, came under a hail of sticks and stones as he and son James practiced bowling in February last year at Erith leisure centre in Kent, England.

Two stones, one the size of half a brick, struck the father of two on the temple and fractured his cheekbone, and he collapsed to the ground with a heart attack.

Five boys, one of whom was just 10 at the time, were convicted at the Old Bailey of manslaughter and violent disorder in August.

The youngest, now 12, and his brother, 13, as well as three other boys all aged 14 were yesterday given sentences in youth detention.

Judge Warwick McKinnon described their conduct as “utterly disgraceful and criminally irresponsible”.