Manchester Teenagers Jailed For Stabbing Dad 35 Times Before Throwing Him In A Canal
These are the three teenagers who lured a stranger to a secluded area before brutally stabbing him and throwing him into the canal before watching him die.
33-year-old Scott Anderton was a complete stranger to his attackers, Liam Bailey, Harry Maher and Liam O'Brien.
The teenagers horrifically stabbed Mr Anderton 35 times before throwing him into the canal whilst he was still alive, as he desperately attempted to fight for his life and clung onto the banks of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, in Leigh, Greater Manchester, they continued their despicable attack.
The sickening trio of murderous teenagers even returned to the crime scene and filmed the police whilst they were searching for the body of Scott Anderton.
Passing down the sentence of a combined total of almost 50 years, Judge Conrad said the ‘scale and savagery’ of their attack ‘almost defies belief’.
He said: "Scott Anderton suffered 35 sharp force wounds, some of them penetrating deep and some even cutting bone, as well as a number of blunt force injuries."
"Having been so terribly injured he was thrown into the canal while he was still alive. While he was in there you watched him struggle for life, taunted him, and let him die."
"You went back an hour later to see what you had done – and then after a trip into Manchester returned to observe and film the police activity, glorying in what you had done."
The police recovered the body of Mr Anderton on the morning of March 25, the three teenagers were arrested the following day.
The identities of the killers was kept anonymous due to legal restrictions, however, these were lifted by Judge Conrad QC on Friday 14, November, following an application made by the Manchester Evening News.
Follow the violent murder of Mr Anderton, Harry Maher had made an internet search, "How long do u get for a murder."
The three teenagers targeted the 33-year-old, who one of them would later describe as "a complete stranger," after they came across him walking alone in Leigh town centre during the early hours of the morning.
Just moments earlier, CCTV had captured Mr Anderton walking through Leigh bus station with only one shoe and carrying a plastic bag.
Carrying a bag of weapons with them, Bailey, Maher and O'Brien lured the 33-year-old father to a quiet stretch of the canal where he was subjected to a "horrific" act of extreme violence.
A post-mortem examination found ’35 separate, sharp force injuries’ across Mr Anderton’s body, as well as blunt force trauma injuries to his head.
A pathologist found a number of the wounds were ‘defensive’ and ‘consistent with blows being delivered to him to prevent him getting out of the canal’.
The murderous teenagers then left the scene, but would return twice that same morning, during their second visit, which was not long after the body of Mr Anderton had been pulled from the canal they took several video recordings of the police whilst they carried out their investigations.
One video recovered from Bailey’s phone showed police vehicles at the scene accompanied by O’Brien’s voice saying ‘Hot in Leigh Town’.
A second video – found on O’Brien’s phone – was ‘decorated with clouds and a rainbow with a caption saying, ‘Good Vibes’.
All three of the attackers were arrested by police on March 26, in the early hours of the morning.
On Friday, a statement was read out on behalf of Mr Anderton’s grandmother Irene Anderton, who he lived with for much of his life.
She spoke of the toll his murder had taken on his family, how she had "fought off tears" every day in court, and how his eight-year-old nephew can now no longer sleep at night after they used to "chat for hours" at her home.
Ms Anderton added: ‘Scott lacked self-esteem, but his heart was as big as the sun.’
In another statement Mr Anderton’s father, who worked with his son and saw him the day before his murder, told his killers: "My family have been left with a life sentence."
Liam Bailey, 19, admitted murdering Mr Anderton before the trial began at Manchester Crown Court.
The other two had denied their roles in Mr Anderton’s killing, before one was found guilty of murder and one manslaughter.
Harry Maher, aged 16, was found guilty of murder while Liam O’Brien, aged 17 was cleared of murder but convicted of manslaughter.
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