Murderer gets 25-year tariff

A gangster from Wolverhampton who murdered two men with a shotgun in a vice war has been told he must spend at least 25 years behind bars.

David Antonio Barrett was 31 when he gunned down rival criminal Colin Abrams, 24, and innocent bystander Clifford Brown, 28, with a sawn-off shotgun outside the Malibu Club, Horseley Fields, in July, 1988. He will now stay in jail for at least another six years.

He had rowed with Abrams and others during gang warfare for the control of prostitutes in Wolverhampton.

Barrett, formerly of The Mayfields, Willenhall Road, was jailed for life at Stafford Crown Court the following year after being convicted of murder.

He was one of a group of pimps operating in the Wolverhampton area. A flat rented in a false name on the top floor of Alder House in Inkerman Street, Heath Town, was the gang's headquarters.

During its reign of terror prostitutes were kidnapped, imprisoned, tortured and even raped, to get them to work on the streets in Wolverhampton, Birmingham, Bristol and London.

Abrams, of Newbridge Street, Tettenhall, and Mr Brown, of Merridale Street West, died from gunshot wounds.

Yesterday Mr Justice Andrew Smith, reviewing the case at London's Royal Courts of Justice, set the tariff on that life term – the minimum time Barrett must serve before he can even apply for parole – at 25 years.