A COUPLE who killed a debt collector have been sentenced following a four week trial.
Scott Davidson, 23, originally from Elton, near Chester, and living in Frodsham, was sentenced to life and was ordered to serve no less than 30 years in prison for the murder of 49-year-old Martin Ithell, of Great Boughton, after being found guilty by a jury.
His co-accused, Flintshire worker Rachael Horton, now 20, of Little Sutton, Ellesmere Port, was handed an eight year sentence at a young offenders’ institute, after she admitted manslaughter for her role in the killing of Mr Ithell on March 11 last year.
The victim’s family and his partner Sarah Potbury, as well as both defendants’ families. packed the public gallery at Liverpool Crown court yesterday, joining lead detectives and respective counsels at the emotionally charged hearing.
The former lovers showed no emotion when the sentences were delivered by The Recorder of Liverpool Judge Clement Goldstone.
Mr Ithell’s body was found in his own car outside Blacon Police Station, Chester, in the early hours of Saturday, March 12.
He had been shot and stabbed at the then couple’s home in Frodsham.
Det Insp Helen Spooner, from Cheshire Police, who led the investigation, said: “Davidson claimed he had shot Martin by accident in self defence. However I believe his actions leading up to the murder show he had planned the attack and had no intention of letting Martin walk out of that house alive.
“Horton has never given a clear explanation of what the extent of her involvement was but she has pleaded guilty to manslaughter, showing she was connected to Martin’s death.
“Martin’s family and a lot of people in the Chester area have been deeply affected by his death and I hope today’s sentence helps them begin to move on from what happened.”
As part of his speech, Judge Goldstone told the court how “greed, immaturity and trying to please two women” had led Davidson to borrow large sums of money from a man he had previously referred to as a “friend”.
He said the premeditation of the murder and the mitigating factors of Davidson’s age and absence of previous convictions “served to cancel each other out”.
The court heard how Mr Ithell had been described as a loan shark, charging exorbitant rates on loans such as the £16,000 debt taken out by Davidson, which had subsequently swelled to £26,000.
But Judge Goldstone told Davidson: “No one made you take out that loan.”
Despite evidence being heard during the trial that Mr Ithell had used threatening means to recover money in the past, Judge Goldstone rejected any such suggestion.
He said: “You were indebted to him for a period of four to five months – he had given you time. You went into this with your eyes wide open.”
Instead of honestly repaying the money, or asking his parents for the cash, the court heard how Davidson had plotted, with his former lover Horton, to commit an armed robbery – even buying an imitation handgun, balaclavas and putting together a ‘robber’s kit’ later found in their home.
When their plans failed to come to fruition, Judge Goldstone said Davidson “lured” Mr Ithell to his home on the evening of March 11, after stealing his father’s shotgun and ammunition.
He added: “You shot him at point blank range. You intended to kill him and of that there can be no doubt.
“For this murder you have shown no remorse and the jury saw right through your attempts to blacken Mr Ithell’s character.
“But it flew in the face of a body of evidence that you planned and did in fact shoot Mr Ithell as you saw it was your only way out of your indebtedness to him.”
Former Sutton High School pupil, Horton, who wore a pale grey cardigan and pink hair tie at the sentencing, had subsequently entered a guilty plea to manslaughter on December 6, after the jury at the trial failed to reach a verdict in her case.
She entered her plea on the basis that she handed the knife to Davidson after he shot Mr Ithell in the hallway of their previously shared home at Hawthorne Road, Frodsham.
Andrew Thomas QC, defending Horton, said his client had supported her former lover in the killing of Mr Ithell, but had not stabbed him, or handed Davidson the knife with the intention for him to kill or cause serious harm.
The Crown say Davidson was wholly responsible for the shooting but not the stabbing of Mr Ithell and he was sentenced on that basis.
Horton will serve one half of her sentence – minus the 296 days already spent on remand since her arrest on March 12.
Judge Goldstone said the sentence was“richly deserved for the part Horton played in the death of Mr Ithell.”
He added: “You were no shrinking violet in your relationship with Scott Davidson. You were a driving force behind plans to rob his way out of debt and you are not, and should not be described as a woman ‘blinkered by love’.
“You knew full well that he might use the knife when you handed it to him but this does not form the basis on which I sentence him (Davidson).”
Judge Goldstone said the couple made no attempts to save Mr Ithell’s life and left his body in a pool of blood in their hallway, while they cleaned blood from the walls and floor.
Horton told the court during the trial she had washed the bloodied kitchen knife because she wanted to protect her former lover, whom with she was “besotted”.
However a blood-stained mop and bucket was found at the scene by crime investigators, where attempts had been made by the pair to conceal the incident.
The court heard how both defendants carried Mr Ithell’s body to his own car wrapped in a polythene sheet.
He said Horton was a “strong character” who played a “callous role” in the killing.
Davidson was later heard to have driven Mr Ithell’s car around various locations in Cheshire before handing himself and Mr Ithell’s body over to police at Blacon Police Station shortly before 2am, on March 12.
Davidson will only be considered for parole after 29 years and 69 days – and if and when he is assessed as not being a danger to the public.
After his release he will be on parole for the rest of his life.