Family members jailed over killing

Three members of the same family were today behind bars for the killing of a teenager on Hartlebury Common.

Scrap dealer Joe Carpenter, who stabbed 19-year-old Shane Price through the heart and pleaded guilty to murder, was starting a life sentence after a four-week trial.

The 19-year-old was told he must serve a minimum of 14 years and four months before being considered for release.

His parents Paul and Tracy Carpenter, convicted by a jury of manslaughter and wounding the victim's parents, Eileen and Fred Price, with intent to cause them grievous bodily harm, were each jailed for 11 years.

The jury cleared them of murder after deliberating for 18 hours at the end of a four-week trial.

The Carpenters, who all lived in Park Crescent, Stourport, and the Price family, of Broach Road, Stourport, went to a pre-arranged meeting on Wilden Top car park to sort out problems over diesel, scrap metal and a 17-year-old girl fostered by the killer's parents.

Sentencing the trio, Judge Alistair McCreath said the death of the teenager on February 13 last year was "utterly needless".

Joe Carpenter, who also admitted wounding Eileen Price with intent to cause her GBH, had armed himself with a long knife.

The judge at Worcester Crown Court said his parents knew he had a knife at the scene.

He told them: "Your instinctive reaction was not to put an end to a dangerous situation by stopping your son, but to allow this fight to continue by preventing Mr and Mrs Price from intervening. You did not react like parents should have done."

Car dealer Paul Carpenter, 55, attacked Mr Price, 47, with a machete and Tracy Carpenter, 46, held Mrs Price, 42, by the hair while her son stabbed her in the head and chest.

By Dave Thomas