Two men and a woman were jailed for life yesterday for tying a teenager to a tree, pouring petrol down his throat and setting him alight in a gruesome copycat attack from a horror film.

Simon Everitt, 17, a promising engineering student, was thrown into a car boot and taken to woods near Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, where he was killed. The flames burnt through the rope and he was able to stagger a short distance before collapsing and dying.

His killers threw him into a ditch and covered him with a thin layer of soil in an attempt to hide the body.

Jonathan Clarke, 20, from Telford, Shropshire, and Jimi-Lee Stewart, 25, and Maria Chandler, 40, both from Great Yarmouth, were all convicted of murder last month.

The idea for the murder came from the spoof horror film Severance, which Clarke had watched and remarked, ‘Wouldn’t it be wicked if you could actually do that to someone in real life?’, Norwich Crown Court was told.

Mr Justice Calvert-Smith told Clarke that he would remain in prison for at least 27 years before being considered for parole, Stewart for 22 years and Chandler for 17 years.

The judge said: “The murder involved a significant degree of planning and premeditation. While it was not a planned terrorism outrage or political assassination, it was certainly not a spur of the moment venture. I have no doubt that the word sadistic applies to Clarke.”

He said that Stewart could not be described as sadistic in the same way, but he added: “He took a full part in inflicting physical and mental suffering on Simon Everitt before his death, sufficient to describe it as torture in legal and lay terms.

“If he didn’t derive actual pleasure, he certainly derived some satisfaction and took a full part in it. He made no effort to mitigate the cruel death he witnessed.”

Clarke and Stewart smirked and whispered in the dock as they were sentenced.

Clarke, Stewart and Mr Everitt had been involved in a tangled love affair with a woman called Fiona Statham, who was 19 at the time of the murder. She rang one of the defendants during the attack and heard Mr Everitt shouting: “Jimi help me, please. I am begging you, help me.”

So shocking was the crime that relatives of the killers turned them in to police and gave evidence against them in court. Stewart’s mother contacted officers when he confessed to her. They learnt the location of the burial site when Clarke’s brother and sister came forward.

Karim Khalil, QC, for the prosecution, had warned the jury that the case would demonstrate “the grotesque brutality that young people can inflict on one another”.

The post-mortem examination concluded that Mr Everitt died from inhalation of a combustible fluid.

In a victim impact statement read to the court, Simon Everitt’s father, Vince, who uses a wheelchair, said: “I have had an horrendous time dealing with the death of my son.

“I was in a state of disbelief and kept expecting my son to walk through the door. As time went on the horror of what happened began to plague me. After his funeral, I started to realise it was real. I am now seeing a trauma specialist.”

Mr Everitt, who was studying at Great Yarmouth College, was reported missing on June 9 last year. Detective Chief Inspector Steve Strong of Norfolk Police said the murder was one of the most horrific investigated by his force.

Detective Sergeant Andy Lovick, said that Stewart’s mother, Susan Lewis, 46, was a “lady of extreme moral courage”.

After the verdicts, Mrs Lewis said: “I was devastated that I had to call but there was no way that I wasn’t going to . . . it had to be reported.My reaction was shock, horror and disgust. I was just thought, ‘No, this isn’t happening’.”

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