Tragic tale of young talent cut short by cheap booze

He was a Staffordshire swimming champion with bags of talent and a bright future.

Then Lee Chipchase got a taste for the cheap, strong booze that blights Britain and the powerful cider sent him on an alarming downward spiral that ended with his brutal death aged 31.

His mother Carol, aged 60, who recently retired after 17 years as an administrative clerk with West Midlands Ambulance Service, fought back tears as she spoke about how she saw such a talent go to waste.

"He had so much to live for but the drink got hold of him," she said. "It did not kill him but it did him a lot of damage.

"Cheap cider turned him from a super fit young athlete who trained up to four hours a day into a man of 30 who could barely walk because the alcohol had destroyed the nerves in his legs.

"It also meant that he mixed with heavy drinkers like the man who killed him. Lee gave up alcohol on at least one occasion but was lured back into boozing by the world he decided to live in and some of the people who inhabited it.

"I went with him to meetings with experts to help him stop drinking, just like I had taken him to swimming training at 5.30 in the morning.

"But he liked his independence and could not be expected to live under the thumb of his mother forever.

"People say that I did as much as I could to help him but I am still left wondering if there is more that I could and should have done.

"I just pray that young people begin to wake up to the dangers of cheap, strong booze and do not follow the same route downhill that he took.

"If this case helps to save just one youngster from suffering the same fate as Lee then he will not have died in vain and some good will have come out of this terrible tragedy."

Lee Chipchase was so talented at breast stroke that he was allowed to use swimming baths free of charge from the age of seven.

He joined Walsall Swimming Club where he became Staffordshire breast stroke junior champion and broke age group records set by double Olympic medallist and world champion Nick Gillingham.

Mr Chipchase was an only child and his devoted mother recalled: "He got loads of trophies and medals. I was so proud.

"His father and I took him swimming from the age of five and he enjoyed such a lot of success. He was at Walsall Baths for two hours training before school and returned for a further two hours after lessons.

"Then around the age of 14 he stopped swimming. He said that his heart was no longer in it. I was devastated but it was his decision. He said he wanted to enjoy the life of a normal teenager.

"He was like a lovable labrador who was always laughing and smiling and enjoyed being the life and soul of the party."

Walsall Swimming Club coach Gwyn Davies, a 55-year-old former Great Britain and Wales water polo player, said: "I was competing at the club at the same time as Lee. He was a county champion and good up to the age of 14 when he decided that he had had enough. That is not unusual in youths of that age because swimming is a very demanding sport.

"But I remember those who were coaching him were very disappointed when he quit because he had not fulfilled his potential and could have gone a long way in the sport."

Lee had a string of jobs after leaving Churchfields High School in West Bromwich where his killer, Paul Timmins, was also a pupil in a class several years behind him.

He had not worked for five years as drink took over his life and lived for more than two years at the house in Lodge Road, West Bromwich where he died.

The large Victorian property is split into bedsits and his killer moved in five months before the tragedy.

Both were heavy drinkers and 6ft 4in Timmins was both taller and heavier than his victim.

He ruthlessly beat up Lee and another man, Sean Fletcher, aged 36, after coming home angry and drunk from the nearby Prince Albert pub on the night of November 13 and 14 last year.

Mr Fletcher also had a bedsit in the large Victorian house but had lost his key and was staying with Lee. The pair had been drinking two litre bottles of White Storm cider at the flat all day.

Lee was attacked as he lay in bed and was later found to have suffered 18 rib fractures, a broken breastbone, lacerations to the intestine and liver, a serious brain injury and a broken bone in the neck.

Experts found at least 30 different areas of bruising on his body. Neither he nor Mr Fletcher, who was left battered and bruised, retaliated.

Mr Fletcher fell asleep on the sofa and then Timmins left and spent the rest of the night in his own flat.

He was woken the next morning when Gary Fletcher knocked on the communal entry door to the house and asked for his brother.

The door to the flat was open. Inside, Lee lay dead on the bed where he had been attacked and Sean Fletcher was still asleep on the sofa.