Cannon Ball

Torture killers lose appeal bid

0 Comments | Northern Echo, Jun 26, 2010 | by Catherine Priestley

THREE murderers who tortured a man to death inside their home have lost appeals against the length of their jail terms.

Clare Nicholls, Simon Nicholls and Steven Martin were sentenced to life imprisonment after being found guilty of murdering 35-year- old Andrew Gardner.

Clare Nicholls was jailed for a minimum of 32 years for torturing Mr Gardner, her boyfriend and the father of her fourth child, for weeks before his eventual death in March last year.

Her brother, Simon, was told he will serve at least 25 years and her on-off lover, Steven Martin, received a 20-year minimum custodial sentence for his part in the gruesome killing at the home they all shared in Chilton, County Durham.

All three were given the right to challenge the lengths of their jail term, a combined sentence of at least 77 years, at the Court of Appeal in London.

But Lord Justice Elias, Mr Justice Gross and Mr Justice Foskett yesterday rejected their cases.

Mr Justice Foskett said the trial judge, Judge Peter Fox, had had the benefit of seeing all three in court before deciding who was most culpable.

Following a three-week trial at Teesside Crown Court in January, he had ruled the murder merited a 30-year starting point.

Yesterday, lawyers for all three argued the minimum terms passed by Judge Fox were “manifestly excessive”.

Judge Foskett told the court that Clare Nicholls, originally from Portsmouth, was the instigator and main perpetrator of the horrific violence inflicted on her “shy, placid” partner.

Her brother had often acted as her “enforcer” when Mr Gardner attempted to defend himself and she and Martin compounded their victim’s misery and humiliation by having sex in front of him.

MrGardner, who had learning difficulties, was found dead by paramedics when they were called to the house in Arthur Street, Chilton, on March 13 last year.

He hadmore than 120 injuries, similar to those of a serious crash victim, including 21 rib fractures, bleeding on the brain and blood poisoning.

He had been starved, slashed, whipped, scalded, burnt by being held against a radiator and branded with a cigarette lighter in the weeks before his death.

After serving their minimum terms, the three killers will only get parole if they are no longer considered a danger to the public and would remain on strict licence conditions for life.