Vigilante kidnappers and killers of Wigan dad Christopher Hughes are jailed for a total of 235 years

The minimum terms that the men must serve for the abduction and murder of innocent 37-year-old Christopher Hughes, involve a massive total of 229 years.

A judge told the men that the killing, which involved the helpless victim suffering at least 90 stab and slash wounds all over his head and body, was “brutal and, in part, sadistic.”

During the trial, which began in late October, the jury at Liverpool Crown Court heard former boxer Mr Hughes was suspected by the defendants of having raped a teenaged girl at knifepoint behind a post office in Ridyard Street, Worsley Hall.

They organised a co-ordinated 24-hour manhunt before Mr Hughes was spotted on Almond Grove, Worsley Hall, punched in the face and snatched “in a slick move” in broad daylight and bundled into the boot of a blue Audi A4 on February 18 last year.

During the agonising attack, the two men who drove him from Wigan to a country lane in Skelmersdale - Curtis Balbas and Erland Spahiu - viciously wielded a machete and a knife.

The assault included them holding Mr Hughes’s legs apart and deliberately injuring his intimate areas.

Mr Justice Wall told the defendants: “I can only conclude (those injuries) were thought to be suitable punishment for someone suspected of having committed a sexual offence. They would have been, for Mr Hughes, both humiliating and painful.

He told them he was prepared to accept that they all believed that the girl’s allegation was true and that it was Mr Hughes who was responsible.

“That belief does not begin to justify the attack on him,” he added.

And he pointed out that not only was there no evidence that Mr Hughes was responsible, but when her clothing was scientifically analysed it was found that the semen on her underwear could not have been from him.

After the attack, which also included severing a tendon in his leg to prevent his escape, they left his mutilated body at the scene on a grassy embankment in White Moss Road South, near the M58, abandoned to the winter elements. He was found four days later by a dog-walker.

On the evening after the killing 34-year-old Spahiu, who lives in the same road as the murder scene, accompanied by his cousin Erion Voja, who was visiting from London, Dean O’Neill Davey and Andruis Uzkuraitis, formed a burial party to hide the body.

The men, equipped with a spade, wellies, gloves, bottles of bleach and bin bags purchased for them from Asda by sisters of Balbas, were digging a grave on nearby wasteland when they were disturbed by police who happened to be investigating a road smash close by.

“You all took fright and left the scene without carrying out your gruesome plan,” said the judge.

The next day the car was taken to a breaker’s yard in Douglas Mill where it was found by police, cut up.

Mr Justice Wall told the defendants: “It was a murder which was designed to obstruct or interfere with the course of justice. The starting point for sentence is therefore 30 years.”

The judge said that he was satisfied Balbas, Spahiu and Martin Smith, who was initially in the Audi when Mr Hughes was kidnapped, intended that Mr Hughes should die.

He ordered that 30-year-old Balbas, a Kurdish Iraqi, of Matheson Drive, Worsley Hall, should serve a minimum of 34 years and Spahiu, an Albanian, has to serve 35 years.

He said that the two men, whose work included enforcing vehicle re-possession, both have previous convictions and the jury had seen videos of them using serious group violence on the streets of London. In one of them they threatened to remove a man’s fingers for non-payment of a debt.

An aggravating factor, he said, was that Spahiu had threatened Mr Hughes’s friend, who was with him when he was snatched from the street, “keep your ****ing mouth shut, or you’re next”.

Balbas pleaded guilty to kidnap and murder and the other seven men were convicted after trial.

Smith, of 34, of Greenwood Avenue has to serve a minimum of 33 years.

The judge said that he sentenced the other five defendants on the basis they intended to cause grievous bodily harm.

Alan Jaf, 52, of Ridyard Street and Khalil Awla, 48, also of Greenwood Avenue, both have a minimum tariff of 26 years. They owned and ran M6 Motors in Wigan where the Audi was taken after the killing before being destroyed and like Jaf are married to sisters of Balbas.

Razgar Mohammed, 40, of Plane Avenue must serve 27 years; O’Neill Davey, 30, of Conrad Close faces at least 25 years behind bars.

Voja, 21, of Peall Road, Croydon, London has a minimum term of 23 years. The judge pointed out that he had been with Spahiu and Balbas in the London violence and had hit a man on the head with a car brace. He was the only defendant to show any reaction and as he was led to the cells he shouted that he was not a murderer and would get his justice one day.

At the end of the trial last month Andrius Uzkuraitis, a 27-year-old Lithuanian, of Holly Road, Worsley Hall, was cleared of murder, kidnapping and conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm. He was however convicted of assisting an offender and was today jailed for six years.

His barrister, Peter Moulson said it was accepted that he had taken steps to delete CCTV footage, assisted as a look-out for the burial party and contacted someone about destroying the blue Audi.

The victim’s mum, Susan Hudson, has told the court in an impact statement how she is devastated by her son’s death and is devoting her life to caring for his four-year-old daughter.

After the hearing Rebecca Macaulay-Addison of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) North West’s Complex Casework Unit, said: “These men were responsible for the death of Christopher, in violent and terrifying circumstances.

“The CPS worked hard with the Major Incident Team at GMP to build a strong case, pulling together all the evidence including eyewitness testimony, CCTV footage, forensic evidence, mobile phone messages and telephone location data, into a compelling case to place before the jury.

“My thoughts are very much with Christopher’s family who I know feel his loss deeply.”