TWO men who abducted, abused and strangled a nine-year-old boy were sentenced to life imprisonment at the Old Bailey yesterday.
A jury of eight men and four women took less than three hours to convict unemployed waiter Brett Tyler (30) and Timothy Morss (33) of the murder of Daniel Handley.
Morss, a taxi driver from Leyton, east London, had earlier admitted murdering Daniel on October 2nd, 1994. He and Tyler, while cruising the streets looking at young boys, spotted Daniel rid ding his bicycle near his east London home. They decided he was the perfect subject for their sexual fantasy of abducting a blue eyed boy, and sexually assaulting, then murdering, him.
Morss and Tyler snatched Daniel off the street and drove him to a minicab office where they assaulted him sexually. The video taped each other but claimed the film was then destroyed.
Daniel was later driven more than 160 kms (100 miles) to a lay by near Junction 14 of the M4, where he was strangled with a knotted rope.
Tyler had been drinking and smoking cannabis all day and had earlier paid two other young boys to expose themselves.
The pair then took Daniel's body to a golf course at nearby Bradley Stoke, near Bristol, where they left it in a shallow hole. Two weeks later they returned to bury it deeper.
Six months passed before foxes unearthed Daniel's skull. The rest of his remains were then discovered.
After the verdicts were handed down, Daniel's mother left the court, apparently too upset to speak.
The detective who led the inquiry welcomed the life sentences. Mr Edwin Williams said he hoped the sentences and Mr Justice Curtess's recommendation that the two men never be released would give Daniel's family "some satisfaction that society does its very best to try to protect its children".
Mr Williams, a recently retired detective superintendent, urged the Government to proceed as possible with the Home Secretary's plans to require released paedophiles to register their addresses with the police.
But he said he believed Tyler and Morss were beyond rehabilitation. "These particular men are lost. They are evil men I don't believe they can be treated."