Teenagers jailed for life for beating homeless man to death ‘because it was funny’

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Tom Herbert for Metro.co.uk



Charlie White will serve a minimum of 16 years (Picture: PA)

Two teenagers who beat a homeless man to death because ‘it was funny’ have been jailed for life.

Razvan Sirbu, 21, was left with a broken skull, and fractures to his face and ribs after Charlie White and Alex Macdonald launched an unprovoked attack on him with a meat cleaver.

The pair, both 19, were jailed for a minimum of 16 years and 18 years respectively at Maidstone Crown Court today, Kent Police said.

Mr Sirbu’s body was found by dog walkers in woodland off Cave Hill in Maidstone on May 7 last year, near a tent he had been living in which had been vandalised.

His cause of death was given as blunt force trauma to the head and torso, with multiple skull fractures, multiple facial bone fractures and broken ribs.


MacDonald will have to serve 18 years (Picture: PA)

A neuropathologist who examined Mr Sirbu’s brain believed he would only have survived for about 30 minutes after the brutal attack.

CCTV of a skate park showed White burning clothing believed to have been worn in the murder, while images appeared to show Macdonald and a third defendant James Buckley re-enacting some of the violence, police said.

Blood found on the hood of a grey coat seized from a caravan where Macdonald was arrested matched Romanian Mr Sirbu.

Detectives discovered a conversation between him and White where he said he kept beating the victim in the face because he ‘thought it was funny’.

White and Macdonald, both of Maidstone, denied murder but were found guilty by a jury.

Detective Chief Inspector Tony Pledger branded the killers’ actions cowardly and said Mr Sirbu was ‘robbed of his life’ by ‘gratuitous violence’ of which the reasons remain unclear.

Buckley, 20, formerly of Capell Close, Coxheath, was also charged with murder, but was deemed unfit to plead.

The jury found he was involved in the act of killing Mr Sirbu and he will be sentenced at a later date, police said.

After sentencing Macdonald became aggressive and attacked dock officers as they attempted to take him to the cells knocking one officer to the ground.