Deon P. Green, Gleaner Writer
LONDON, England:
THE TWO men convicted of the racially motivated murder of 18-year-old Anthony Walker have been slapped with life sentences in England.
Walker, a black man of Jamaica parentage, was chopped in the head with an axe in July this year.
As the trial ended in the Liverpool Crown Court this week, the judge described the attack as 'poisonous' against society and said that, as a result, the convicts must serve a total of 41 years behind bars before becoming eligible for parole.
In handing down sentence, Mr. Justice Leveson told 20-year-old Paul Taylor, who smashed the ice axe into Walker's head after ambushing him in a park in Huyton, Merseyside, in July, that he must spend at least 23 years and eight months in jail. Taylor's cousin, 17-year-old Michael Barton, brother of Premiership footballer Joey Barton, was told he would serve at least 17 years and eight months for the murder.
In passing the custodial sentence on Barton, Judge Leveson said: "You crept into the park with evil on your mind and then effected your ambush.''
Taylor changed his plea from not guilty to guilty just before the trial began on November 15 while Barton was convicted of Walker's murder by a jury last Wednesday. The judge told Barton that, although he did not wield the axe, he was jointly responsible for the murder.
The trial revealed the conflict was initiated when racist slurs were shouted at Walker as he waited at a bus stop with cousin Marcus Binns and girlfriend, Louise Thompson, on the day of the murder. The men later ambushed Walker after he had walked away.
