The 13-year-old boy who battered man to death and threw his body on a bonfire

Jamie Smith was high on cider and vodka when he murdered 34-year-old Stephen Croft in the early hours of November 6 last year.

Judge Henry Globe, QC, the Recorder of Liverpool, told Smith he posed a "very high risk of harm to the public" and ordered he serve a minimum 13 years before being eligible for parole.

Owing to the gravity of the crime, he lifted an order banning the identification of Smith because of his age.

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Mr Croft's sister Sarah criticised Smith's parents for creating a "monster" and said no sentence was punishment enough for destroying their family.

The court heard that Smith, who despite his age already had 11 previous convictions, including robbery and assault, was on the run from a care home at the time of the murder.

He was taken into care in September after the arrest of his father. Gerald Murphy, 31, was jailed for a minimum 11 years in January after being convicted of a vicious attack on an Asian market trader which left his victim paralysed from the neck down.

Liverpool Crown Court heard that Smith, from Birkenhead, had been sent to a home near Accrington but would repeatedly abscond and return home.

On the evening of November 5 care workers, alerted by Smith's family, arrived to take him back to the care home but he became aggressive, threatened to set off a firework in a carer's car and ran off.

He attended a community bonfire, in Quarry Bank, Birkenhead, where he met Mr Croft, a former builder who had developed a drink problem following an industrial accident.

By 1am Mr Croft was the equivalent of five times the drink drive limit and in a "vulnerable" state, said David Turner, QC, prosecuting.

"Smith decided to take advantage of his drunken condition and murdered him while he was helpless, repeatedly kicking him and punching him. It was a sustained attack on a helpless man.

"He took from the body some rolling tobacco, cigarette papers and a lighter and put the body on to the fire in the hope that fire damage would conceal his crime."

Following the murder, Smith went to the local YMCA and told staff that there was "someone stuck in the fire" and that he had tried to rescue him.

In fact, the court heard, the opposite was true.

Police were called and Smith was arrested. He gave officers a false name and denied any part in the attack.

But officers discovered Mr Croft's blood on his clothing and, in February this year, he pleaded guilty to murder. A charge of robbery was ordered to lie on file.

Mr Croft's sister, Sarah, said the 13-year minimum tariff was too lenient and that "hanging was too good" for Smith whose parents had "dragged him up to be a monster."

"The punishment for such a violent, mindless crime is for him to know he will be fed, watered, protected, educated and supposedly rehabilitated - all at the taxpayers' expense," she added.

"All this for him to come out bigger, stronger and still as evil."

Steve Maddox, chief executive of Wirral Council, said a review was under way involving all agencies entrusted with Smith's care.