Guilty: Ashley Garraway

Two men - one from Newham -men have been jailed over a drugs gang murder.

Ashley Garraway, 23, from Oxford Road, Stratford, who previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm to Honorato Christovao, 54, of Norwich.

He died four days after sustaining serious head injuries in the city’s Rose Lane car park in the early hours of February 10 last year.

He was sentenced at Norwich Crown Court to four and a half years to add to the 34-month sentence he is already serving for the supply of class A drugs in the City.

Neil Whitby, 40, from Norwich, who previously admitted to conspiracy to kidnap, was jailed for 14 months to run consecutively with the 30-month sentence he’s serving for the supply of class A drugs.

It follows the sentencing in March of two London drug dealers, Anton St Paul, 22, of Keogh Road, Stratford and Spencer Yiadom, 22, from Saville Road, Silvertown, to 23 and 24 years in jail respectively for murder.

Alos 35-year-old Lucy Browne, of Norwich, was given a suspended sentence for manslaughter. She pleaded guilty having agreed to give evidence against her co-accused.

The court heard Garraway had been attacked by members of a rival London drug gang in Norwich in the early hours of February 9.

After leaving hospital he told police he was not a grass and would sort it out in his own way. He contacted his colleagues in the gang, St Paul and Yiadom, and the three of them drove up to Norwich to carry out a revenge attack on a member of the rival gang.

They forced Browne to lure a rival gang member to a secluded spot on the pretence of a drug deal, but the plan backfired when Mr Christovao, who was not a drug dealer, escorted this person to the spot, a car park. He was attacked with a heavy stone or building ball in a sock, suffered a fractured skull and later died.

Garraway was waiting at Browne’s home in anticipation that the rival gang member would be brought there for a beating. Whitby prepared the bungalow for this person’s arrival by covering furniture and putting away valuables.

Guy Ayers, for Garraway, said: “He has got involved in matters that are completely out of his league. He believed the violence that would be meted out to the rival gang member would be similar to that he suffered.”

Andrew Shaw, for Whitby, said his client acted on Browne’s instructions.

Afterwards Detective Superintendent Jes Fry, from the Major Investigation Team, said: “These two sentences conclude a complex and challenging murder enquiry for the team.”

Norfolk’s top judge praised police for an “exceptional investigation”.