Man who murdered boss gets 30 years

Russell Carter, 53, was found guilty of killing Kingsley Monk and three counts of attempted murder after a three-week trial at Newport Crown Court.

Carter, of south Wales, was told he would serve 30 years in prison before he is eligible to apply for release.

Mr Monk, 45, was strangled, probably with his own tie, at Driverline 247 in New Inn, Pontypool, last October, the court was told. He was bound and gagged by Carter, who repeatedly kicked him and beat him with a piece of pipe.

Three other men, Gethin Heal, Nathan Taylor and Robert Lewis, were also tied up and doused with fuel as they arrived for work.

Carter, of Rumney, Cardiff, launched the lethal attack at the office, brandishing what he was later to claim was a toy gun and claiming he was owed £3,000. He fled the office after setting it on fire with the intention of killing the three witnesses still inside.

Sentencing, Recorder of Cardiff Judge Nicholas Cooke QC told Carter: "These crimes were acts of callous wickedness, cruelty and inhumanity which beggar belief. The murder was frenzied and horrific. You terrorised Mr Monk before killing him. Your intention was to kill and you killed."

Addressing the attempted murders of the other men, the judge said: "Here your intention was evil. The fate you meant for these three men was horrific. It showed your unfeeling cruelty. You wanted them to die, either by being burnt alive or by asphyxiation as they lay bound and helpless. Whatever your grievance with Mr Monk, these men had done you no conceivable harm. That you intended so terrible an end to those who had done you no harm identifies you as both extremely dangerous and thoroughly bad."

After returning its verdicts, the jury was told that Carter committed a violent armed bank robbery in the US years before he returned to Britain and killed his boss. But because no formal agreement exists to alert the UK of his criminal past, the authorities here did not know until the Newport trial was already under way.

It meant Carter was able to work as a lorry driver while in breach of parole in the US after serving part of a 20-year jail term there.