Ben Bellamy, 17, was killed on September 18, 2005, by Joel Taylor and Joshua Thomas
The convicted killer of teenager Ben Bellamy has an early shot at parole after a judge praised his "exceptional" progress behind bars. This is what happened.
In the early hours of the morning on September 18, 2005, Olchfa Comprehensive A-level student Ben Bellamy was making his way back from The Pier in Swansea, known to locals as “Cinders”.
He had previously nagged his mother Tracy Gwynn to let him go to the nightspot. She later said: “I felt guilty because he was almost 18. I said ‘Yes’.”
When The Pier shut at 2am Ben allowed his friends to get into a taxi and decided to walk to his home in Sketty Park, five or six miles away.
On his way home he bumped into a group of 15, 16, and 17-year-old boys who were drunkenly making their way home from the Mumbles.
Among the group were Joel Taylor and Joshua Thomas, later convicted of Ben’s murder, and Andrew Rafferty, who was convicted of manslaughter.
After exchanging names at an all-night Texaco garage in Blackpill, Ben joined the group and used his debit card to draw out £20 which he used to buy four Pot Noodles for his new friends.
CCTV images picked the group, with the last footage of Ben seen on CCTV from the Shell garage further on.
The group talked about going to nightclub Top Banana but the congenial atmosphere changed dramatically – with tragic consequences.
Near to Swansea’s seafront war memorial, and without warning, Taylor aimed a punch at Ben, who bumped into Thomas.
The two started hitting, punching and kicking Ben, who was making desperate attempts to flee.
Ben shouted out his pin number and told his attackers: “Take what you want.” But the killers carried on hitting him.
While Rafferty took the bank card to a cashpoint near Walter Road, Taylor and Thomas continued to beat him unconscious.
They then stripped him naked, leaving only socks on the boy’s body, before they dragged his body across the beach, took him to waist depth in the sea beyond the surf zone, and let him go.
Ben drowned soon afterwards after the beating he had received left him unable to fight against the water.
The next day 65-year-old jogger Edward Jenkins was running on the beach at 9am.
He saw what he thought was a tailor’s dummy lying on the foreshore in front of the city’s St Helen’s sports ground.
On closer inspection he found it was the body of a virtually naked teenager, washed up with the driftwood.
The teenage boy was lying on his side “looking just like he was sleeping” but he was dusted in sand and his body was covered in bruises.
The boy was Ben.
As a result of the assault Ben’s face was so swollen his mother could not recognise him. Marks from the soles of Thomas’s Levi trainers were found imprinted on his skin.
Following a trial at Swansea Crown Court, Taylor and Thomas were found guilty of murdering Ben while Rafferty was convicted of manslaughter.
Taylor was sentenced to a minimum of 22 years and Thomas was jailed for a minimum of 18 years.
Rafferty was sentenced to a minimum of five years.
Speaking at the sentencing of her son’s killers, Ben’s mother Tracy said: “I don’t want people to feel sorry for me because I am still here. It is Ben I want people to feel sorry for.
“He was the most wonderful, caring, sensitive person.”
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/story-how-teenage-boy-brutally-12514312#rlabs=2%20rt$sitewide%20p$1
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