A teenager convicted of the "callous" murder of a jeweller who was shot dead as she tried to shield her daughter from armed robbers was sentenced to life today and must serve a minimum of 22 years before being considered for parole.
Marian Bates (64) was killed in her family shop in Arnold, Nottingham, as she stepped between a gunman and her daughter Xanthe in a desperate attempt to stop her two grandsons being left without a mother.
The gunman has never been caught, but his accomplice, Peter Williams (19), of no fixed address, was found guilty of murder by a jury at Stafford Crown Court in March.
Sentencing Williams today, trial judge, Mr Justice Gibbs, sitting at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, told him: "The acts which led to the death by shooting of Mrs Marian Bates were brutal, callous and showed a contempt for human life.
"Her murder has caused immeasurable loss and distress to her family and has caused widespread public sympathy. "It has also aroused outrage at a situation in which a robbery can be committed with a gun discharged in broad daylight in a busy shopping centre in Nottingham."
The public were "rightly appalled at the circumstances of this crime". Cocaine addict Williams, who has been in trouble with the courts since the age of 13 for offences of theft and burglary, helped the gunman to escape by brutally attacking Mrs Bates's husband Victor (66) with a crowbar in the moments after the shooting on September 30 th, 2003.
As well as murder, he was convicted of causing grievous bodily harm with intent to Mr Bates and possessing a firearm with intent. The jury heard that Mrs Bates stepped in front of her daughter in an "instinctive act of bravery" when Williams and the gunman burst into the family shop on Front Street.
Mr Bates, who picked up a fencing sword to try to stop the two masked men escaping but was beaten to the ground with a crowbar by Williams, said after the ruling: "It is a decent outcome to an indecent act." He added: "I think it was a scandal and there is to be an inquiry into the reason why he wasn't picked up sooner and I shall very eagerly await the outcome of that inquiry."
PA