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Grandad killer sent down
Murder victim Gary Beech
The killer of a Leyland grandad stabbed more than 100 times has been jailed indefinitely.
The mutilated body of Gary Beech, 44, was discovered with 120 separate stab wounds at the flat in Sheffield he had moved to.
His distraught daughter Michaela Beech, 21, who lives in Farington, said her dad had been due to return home to Leyland to meet his first grandchild, when he was killed in June last year.
Detectives last week branded murderer Benjamin Anthony Scott, who is beginning an indefinite jail term for public protection, ‘one of the most dangerous men’ they had ever dealt with.
And the 32-year-old killer himself admitted the scene he had created was ‘like something out of a horror film.’
He will serve at least 15 years, and may never be released.
Ms Beech said: “He is a monster. He is vile.
“I couldn’t go to court, I didn’t want to put a face to my dad’s killer.”
Former Leyland Trucks worker Mr Beech, who moved away from the town following a battle with drink problems, had befriended his killer in the weeks before his death.
On the night of the killing, the pair, who were neighbours, had been socialising together at Mr Beech’s flat, but 18-stone Scott stabbed the dad-of-two in the early hours of June 24.
In court last week, he pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of ‘abnormality of the mind.’
Sheffield Crown Court was told Scott has a ‘psychopathic personality disorder’ resulting in ‘impulsive acts of homicidal violence.’
Scott also had a long history of drug and alcohol abuse, and took a daily methadone prescription five times stronger than the adult norm.
Mr Beech’s daughter said: “(Dad) was one of those people who liked to travel. At weekends he always used to take us to Yorkshire or the Lake District, and this was a new thing for him.
“He wanted to get out of Leyland. He packed up and went.”
Mr Beech, who had spent time in the armed forces, and much of his working life as a panel beater and paint sprayer at Leyland Trucks, first went to Sheffield in 2008.
Despite his problems with drink, Michaela says her dad, who was divorced, was loving, caring and always put her and her younger brother Gary above anything else.
“I was 20 years old and I got the phone call from the police,” she remembered. “I was the next of kin and the call came straight to me.
“I was sick, I threw up.
“When I first got the call I just collapsed in the street.
“To know he died and then for it to come out that he was stabbed over 100 times...it was just horrible.”
Talking about Scott’s sentencing, she added: “The court case brought it all back up for me. I was a mess.
“In a way there’s closure, but there will never be full closure because every day I think, ‘Oh my God, my dad has gone’.”
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Weather for Leyland
Saturday 25 May 2013
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 7 C to 14 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
Wind direction: North west
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Sunny spells
Temperature: 8 C to 15 C
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