Killers jailed for total of 15 years over Telford attack
Two friends were today jailed for a total of 15 years for the manslaughter of a man they brutally attacked with a baseball bat and a wooden pole outside flats in Telford.
Drug dealer Jason Noto battered Ismaaeel Rehman 'with all the strength he could muster' round the side of the head with the pole when the victim turned up at his front door while five or six others who were with him waiting in the shadows.
Judge Mrs Justice Kate Thirlwall, sentencing the pair to seven-and-a-half years each at Birmingham Crown Court today, said she was satisfied Mr Rehman and the gang, from Dudley, had gone armed to Noto's flat in Dawley Bank to rob him of cash and cannabis.
While Noto chased off the other men, his best friend Robert Jones, known as Tyson, grabbed a baseball bat from the flat in Powis Place and continued attacking Mr Rehman.
Mr Rehman, who was 22 at the time of the attack in July 2009, suffered a fractured skull, bleeding on the brain, a fractured cheekbone and bruising all over his body.
He died on New Year's Day last year, aged 24, after suffering a massive epileptic seizure.
Noto, 24, of Powis Place, and Jones, also 24, of Webb Crescent, Dawley, had both denied murder. A jury acquitted them but returned guilty verdicts on a charge of manslaughter.
