Boys jailed for stoning cricket father to death

LONDON - Five British boys aged between 12 and 14 were sentenced to two years detention on Friday for stoning a pensioner to death as he played cricket with his son.

The schoolboys, one of whom was aged just 10 at the time, attacked Ernest Norton, 67, next to a leisure centre in Kent, southeast England in February 2006.

The boys spat at Norton, verbally abused him and pelted him with stones and pieces of wood. He died of a heart attack in front of his son after two stones struck him on the head, one rock the size of half a brick shattering his cheekbone.

Judge Warwick McKinnon, sitting at the Old Bailey court in London, sentenced the boys to two years detention each and described the crime as "a vicious, unprovoked attack".

"Your behaviour was utterly disgraceful and criminally irresponsible. No sentence I can pass can restore the human life so needlessly taken by this mindless display of violence," he told them.

The court heard that before the attack, information was posted on an Internet site that there was going to be a fight involving four local gangs in a nearby park.

The five youths belonged to a local gang called "The New Estate" and were part of a larger group of up to 20 who had targeted Norton and his son, James, the court was told.

"There were about five, six or seven of them throwing stones," James Norton, 18, told the court.

"They were also picking up pieces of wood, whatever they could find, and lobbing it over the wire mesh of the tennis courts. They were all just laughing."

The boys, who cannot be named because of their age, were found guilty of manslaughter in August. They are appealing against their conviction.