Shop visit ended in horrific fatal attack

It was a scene that must be familiar to thousands of households across Britain.

On a cold Sunday evening in January, enjoying a night in with his family before another busy working week, Michael Eccles decided to pop to his local shop in Lichfield to buy a bottle of wine.

No-one could have anticipated that the two-minute walk from Costcutters back to his home in Weston Road would bring Mr Eccles – known as Ecky – into the path of a drunk, Carl Keatley, aged 20, and his equally inebriated accomplice Jordan Carroll, then 15. A jury at Birmingham Crown Court heard that following an afternoon spent swigging cheap booze in Lichfield's Beacon Park, the two appeared "intent on causing trouble".

The savage attack that followed saw 43-year-old Mr Eccles punched and stamped on by Keatley, of Greencroft, and Carroll, of Windmill Close, both Lichfield.

A passing driver described seeing the teenager deliver a swift "football-like" kick to the father-of-five's head.

After beating Mr Eccles until he lost consciousness, the pair fled. The Liverpool FC fan was discovered lying in the street yards from his own front door. The smashed remnants of a bottle of wine lay nearby.

The vicious kicks and blows inflicted by Keatley and Carroll had left their victim with a burst eye socket, 10 broken ribs, broken bones in his neck and massive facial injuries.

He died in hospital the following day from his "catastrophic" injuries. He had suffered a heart attack and the loss of blood to his brain resulted in irreversible brain damage.

The factory worker had been planning to marry Yvonne, his partner of 23 years, this year. But the plans lay in tatters on that fateful evening.

That same night, at another home in Lichfield, the lives of another family were unravelling around them.

The trial at heard how Jordan Carroll's mother Sandra called the police after seeing blood on her son's head and realising what had happened.

The stricken woman was said to be crying and shaking as she dialled 999 and reported her son. Carroll reportedly yelled out, sarcastically: "Cheers mum, love you too".

By contrast, his father Edward Carroll cleaned up his son's blood-spattered body and put his clothes and trainers in the washing machine in a bid to help him cover up what he had done. Yesterday, the 55-year-old was convicted of perverting the course of justice. The shocking events that unfolded in Lichfield on January 25 bore all the hallmarks of the social problems at the root of so-called Broken Britain. Carl Keatley and Jordan Carroll turned up at the Dimbles estate that night having spent the afternoon knocking back vodka in Beacon Park.

The now 16-year-old's defence centred on the claim that he was too drunk to remember savagely beating an innocent man.

Police officers also suspected that the violent attack had been captured on a mobile phone video camera – indicating that the father-of-five could have been a victim of the "happy slapping" fad.

Keatley, who is fitted with a prosthetic leg, had tried to persuade jurors that his false limb meant he could not have kicked or stamped on Mr Eccles – despite the fact that footprints matching the soles of the 20-year-old's trainers were found on both the back and front of the Liverpool FC shirt Mr Eccles was wearing when he was attacked.

Keatley had sent a series of text messages to friends after the attack. One said: "I might get nicked in a minute – I've just knocked someone out". Another said: "I'm ****** – the bloke is dead".

Michael Eccles' murder caused shockwaves in peaceful Lichfield and the wider community, and triggered an outpouring of grief and calls for justice.

Hundreds of tributes were posted on the social networking site Facebook, and the Rom steelworks where Mr Eccles had worked for more than 20 years was closed for a day as a mark of respect to the popular production manager. More than 900 people attended his funeral at Lichfield Cathedral. The strains of the Liverpool FC anthem You'll Never Walk Alone filled the vast building as friends and family said their final farewell. The flood of tributes all served to paint a picture of Michael Eccles – decent, hard-working, and devoted to his family and his beloved football team. He was a keen angler and a part-time football coach.

For his life to have been brutally cut short by such a violent and unprovoked attack seemed incomprehensible and Lichfield's MP Michael Fabricant was among those demanding "tough punishment" for those responsible.

Yesterday, the jury convicted both Keatley and Carroll of Mr Eccles's murder, giving his relatives and the entire Lichfield community some sense of the justice for which they had waited since the attack.

The defendants will be sentenced on September 11 and face years behind bars.º