A MAN who murdered a Bradford father-of-three by shooting him in the face at point-blank range has been jailed for life.

Tyron Charles, 29, was killed in a shipping container on land at a smallholding off Foster Park View, Denholme, on September 6 last year.

James Sutcliffe, also 29, was unanimously convicted of murder by a jury at Bradford Crown Court, and yesterday was told by Justice Lavender that he must serve a minimum of 31 years before being considered for release.

James Sutcliffe was also found guilty of conspiring to pervert the course of justice with his parents, Kevin and Janet Sutcliffe, aged 60 and 62 respectively, who were each jailed for two years.

During the trial, the court heard that James Sutcliffe was being pursued by Mr Charles and a man called Adrian Williams for an £800 debt.

On the day of the murder, they visited the defendant on his smallholding and spoke to him about the money.

After Mr Williams left the scene, James Sutcliffe shot Mr Charles with a shotgun, later hiding the body in builders bags.

He then drove onto the moors near Oxenhope and dumped the corpse over a wall into a bog.

The jury heard that the body was not discovered until police secretly recorded conversations between James Sutcliffe and his parents as they visited him in prison.

The court was told that, using details given by James Sutcliffe during a conversation on October 10, police were able to trace the route he took to dispose of the body, and remains of Mr Charles were found in an area of moorland off Nab Water Lane on October 11.

Plotting with their son, Kevin and Janet Sutcliffe made plans to move the body, but were denied the chance to do so after it was found by police. 

Passing sentence yesterday, Justice Lavender said: “James Sutcliffe, you shot and killed Tyron Charles. You shot him with a shotgun at a range of 50 to 100cm. You shot him in the face. The shot entered through and around his right eye. It made a hole in his skull around his eye-socket, which is a gruesome sight.

“You ended the life of a 29 year-old man. He was a son, he was a brother, and he was a father to three children. You caused lifelong misery to his parents and to his other relatives and loved ones.”

The judge said that after shooting Mr Charles, James Sutcliffe had added to the family’s distress by robbing the corpse, later “joking” with his parents about spending the money.

Justice Lavender said of James Sutcliffe: “When his (Mr Charles’s) friends and family were desperate to know what had become of him, you pretended you knew nothing of his whereabouts. You claimed he had been alive when you last saw him. 

“You were arrested by the police and you lied repeatedly to them. You even had the gall to complain that they were not doing their job properly and needed to go and find the proper murderers.”

The judge said that the basis for the conspiracy charge was Kevin and Janet’s Sutcliffe’s agreement to help their son by moving or disposing of the body, possibly by burning it.

He said that by the time police used details from the bugged conversations to locate the body, it had already been in the bog for five weeks.

The judge told James Sutcliffe: “You had left it there to rot. That is what you wanted to happen, in order to destroy any evidence linking you to his death. 

“When it was located, the body had begun to decompose and Tyron Charles’s head, in particular, was infested with maggots. His own mother could not identify him, and she had to grieve over a closed coffin.

“When you told your parents you had shot Tyron Charles, you boasted about it. You said: ‘Janet, I blew his f**king head off, it was f**king ace.’”

The judge told James Sutcliffe that he accepted the killing had not been planned or pre-meditated, but said: “I am sure that, when you held the shotgun that close to Tyron Charles’ face and pulled the trigger, you intended to kill him. 

“You have shown no remorse for what you did. Instead, you have denied it and done everything you could to conceal it.”

Speaking of the conspiracy, and the role played by Kevin and Janet Sutcliffe, Justice Lavender said: “This was a conspiracy whose purpose was to help prevent a murderer from being convicted. 

“I bear in mind that you did not carry out your conspiracy, although that was only because the police found the body before you could move it.

“I accept you were trying to help your son after receiving the devastating news that he had shot someone. But family affection is no justification for a criminal conspiracy.”

In a victim impact statement, Wendy Charles, Mr Charles’s mother, told the court that family and friends were “everything” to her son, whose life had been “cruelly cut short”.

She said: “All we have are memories and the legacy of him through his children. Our lives will never be the same again. There is not an hour of the day I don’t think about my son.”

Mrs Charles said her son’s children had not yet accepted what had happened to their father, and that she woke every night, “haunted” by the sight of someone standing over his dead body.

“It’s an image I just can’t get out of my head,” she said. “I cannot understand how one human being could do this to another. I cannot come to terms with the fact that James Sutcliffe just dumped my son’s body on the moors.

“I will never see my son again and Tyron’s children will have to grow up without their dad.”

An additional statement from Mr Charles’s family read: “Our family has been through hell in the last ten months – first with Tyron going missing and then finding out he was murdered. We then had to wait until his body was found on the moors.

“We are absolutely devastated by the appalling behaviour of the Sutcliffes for the lies and the fact they knew where Tyron’s body had been dumped.

“Tyron was a wonder dad, brother and son and had many friends. No sentence will ever be enough as it will end sometime. We will never get our beloved Tyron back.”

Speaking after the sentencing, detective superintendent Patrick Twiggs, of West Yorkshire Police’s homicide and enquiry team, said: “This was a wicked crime made worse by Sutcliffe’s callous disregard for the body of his victim.

“After shooting Tyron Charles he robbed him and left him to die in a shipping container. He later returned to the scene of his crime to move the body to the moors and dump it in a bog while he considered his next move. 

“He then entered into a conspiracy with his family to get rid of the body permanently and deny Tyron’s family of their fundamental right to bury him.

“All this time Tyron’s family were desperately worried and were appealing through social media to find out what had happened to him.

“I would like to thank the police investigation team whose diligent work led to the recovery of Tyron’s body and hope his family will gain some comfort knowing that the man responsible for his murder is now behind bars.”

All three defendants, of Hill Crest Road, Denholme, Bradford, pleaded not guilty to additional charges of the possession of extreme pornography, with James Sutcliffe also denying a charge of voyeurism.

The court heard that the Crown Prosecution Service would not be pursuing the charges, which were left to lie on file.