Squalid end

[xman]

It was a gruesome, squalid end to years of abuse and humiliation.

The headless, dismembered body of Michael Gilbert, 26, was found in a Bedfordshire lake in May 2009.

This discovery would lead police to uncover how the vulnerable young man was kept as a domestic slave by a family and tortured for his benefit payments.

Luton Crown Court heard that for years he was regularly subjected to sickening assaults "for entertainment" by members of the Watt clan and their associates.

Now James Watt, 27, James's girlfriend Natasha Oldfield, 29, and Nichola Roberts, 21, have all been found guilty of his murder.

'Dogsbody and slave'

During their trial, Stuart Trimmer QC for the Crown said Mr Gilbert - described as a "vulnerable adult" who had met James Watt at the age of 15 in a children's home - had been held captive at the Watts' Luton home for years and subjected to "beating after beating".

Mr Trimmer said Mr Gilbert was their "dogsbody and their slave". His benefit money was taken from him and he was forced to sleep handcuffed to a bed to prevent his escape.

Mr Trimmer said Mr Gilbert would be kicked, punched and forced to drink his own urine, as well as being attacked with a baseball bat, a knife and a snooker ball. He was dropped on his head and made to stand in boiling water. Some of the beatings were recorded on mobile phones.

Oldfield - the girlfriend of James Watt - wrote a plan for a "game show" in which sums of money were linked to different assaults on Mr Gilbert.

Written above these were the words "Gilbert ends up dead".

A picture emerged of James Watt as the ringleader of the abuse.

Giving evidence for the prosecution, his brother Richard Watt, 25 - who admitted familial homicide and perverting the course of justice - agreed with a suggestion by defence lawyers that James was a "control freak and a violent bully".

Richard said he was "too scared" of his brother to get help and was warned by his mother, Jennifer Smith-Dennis, 58, to "think of the outcome".

Tracked down

It is unclear how Mr Gilbert fell under James Watt's clutches, but the two met in a children's home at the age of 15.

With little contact with his own family, Mr Gilbert felt he had nowhere else to turn. And the beatings and intimidation appear to have cowed him into submission.

To prevent him from escaping, his clothes were confiscated - and when he did manage to abscond, he was ruthlessly tracked down and punished.

However, on two occasions he did manage to get away to Cambridge and Blackburn. But he was found and "forcibly brought back", jurors heard.

Richard said James Watt became "obsessed" with finding Mr Gilbert when he escaped.

The family would call the Department of Work and Pensions, impersonate him using his National Insurance number, ask where he had last signed on - and lie in wait outside the benefit office.

The police became aware of allegations Mr Gilbert had been abducted from the street in Cambridge after the Watts tracked him down.

He confirmed to officers this was true, but told them he did not want to pursue a complaint because "it would make it worse for me in the long run".

Extreme pain

Mr Trimmer said there was an escalation in the level of violence in the run-up to Mr Gilbert's death.

James Watt devised a new method of inflicting suffering on him - forcing him to lie on the floor and jumping on his stomach with both feet. Nichola Roberts also took part in this abuse, the court heard.

Afterwards Mr Gilbert, in extreme pain, lost control of his bowels and was barely able to walk.

Richard Watt said he died soon afterwards, between 21 and 22 January 2009.

Another brother, Colin Watt, told the jury he had moved out of the family home shortly before Mr Gilbert's death after witnessing increasing violence towards him.

Colin said: "It made me feel ill. I thought, I can't take no more of it, I am going."

He told the court Robert Watt had asked him to go home because they had something to tell him.

"Robert said: 'We killed Michael'," Colin Watt told the court. "I just walked out crying."

Internal injuries

The prosecution said the family dismembered his body and dumped it in a lake called the Blue Lagoon, near Luton.

His decapitated corpse, embedded with airgun pellets, had been weighed down with a stone from the patio in the Watts' back garden, the court heard.

But most of the decomposing parts were found in May 2009 when they came to the surface, sparking the police inquiry. The head was discovered on 4 February 2010, just weeks before the trial began.

A pathologist who examined the body said he could not be certain how Mr Gilbert died, but Dr Nat Carey did find a stab wound that had cut an artery and internal injuries.

Mr Trimmer said: "All in that household knew of his situation and most took part in the abuse.

"None of the defendants took any action to prevent what was an escalating level of abuse that eventually led to his death."

But the most tragic evidence in the trial came when Richard Watt recalled a conversation he had with Mr Gilbert.


Richard said: "One day I said to him 'why are you putting up with it?' and he said to me 'I love you lot, you are my family'."This article is from the BBC News website. ? British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.