Two drunken friends who went partying after stabbing a retired policeman14 times and leaving him to bleed to death were jailed for life today.
A neighbour of deceased 65-year-old policeman William Kennedy, 21-year-old Mervyn Thomas Williamson from Brookfield Gardens, Ahoghill was also told he will serve at least 14 years before being considered for release, while his accomplice 25-year-old Alan George McCooke from Galgorm Road, also Ahoghill, was told he would serve at least 12 years.
Jailing them Antrim Crown Court judge Mr Justice Kerr, sitting in Belfast, said while it was impossible for him to say who did what to Mr Kennedy both had "participated in this shabby, outrageous attack on a frail, defenceless old man". The deceased man was robbed of £50.
Mr Kennedy's daughter Mrs Karen Barr, who found him "lying in a massive pool of blood" two days before Christmas 2001 wept as Mr Justice Kerr described how her father "made desperate, but unavailing attempts to apply a tourniquet to staunch the flow of blood".
Williamson and McCooke eventually pleaded guilty to the murder of Mr Kennedy, but Mr Justice Kerr said while they claimed to be genuinely remorseful about his death, he had found "scant evidence of remorse".