Jail for killer who 'accidentally' shot Peterborough drug dealer in back of head

A gunman who claimed he accidentally shot a drug dealer in the back of the head has been jailed for more than 30 years. 

Lewis Hutchinson, 30, was convicted of murdering 29-year-old Mihai Dobre earlier this year.

His sidekick Christopher Pycroft, 40, was jailed last month for five years and three months for his part in the crime after admitting conspiracy to rob.

Pycroft claimed he had made a plan with Hutchinson to place an order for class A drugs, but then rob the dealer.

The victim, 29-year-old Mihal Dobre, had driven to a meeting place in the Paston area of Peterborough to deliver the drugs - but when he saw Hutchinson and Pycroft approaching the car from either side, he realised he was about to be robbed.

He tried to drive off but was shot in the back of the head by Hutchinson.

At the earlier murder trial, Pycroft told the jury Hutchinson had come up with the plan while they were drinking and smoking crack cocaine together, and that he had then turned up at Pycroft’s home with a shotgun.

The plan was for Hutchinson to pull out the gun and tell the driver to hand over the drugs.

But, as they carried out the plan on the Crabtree estate in Paston just after midnight on 13 April last year, Hutchinson pulled out the gun and shot through the rear driver’s side window, hitting Mr Dobre in the back of his head.

Hutchinson had tried to claim he was holding the gun for someone else and it somehow went off, telling the jury he was "devastated".

A firearms expert told the court it takes three to four ounces of force to pull a trigger – in comparison to about two to flick a light switch – making it near impossible for the trigger to have gone off on its own.

After the shooting, Hutchinson made his way to a nearby traveller’s site where he hid for a few hours.

He told the jury: “I knew police would be everywhere, so I sat in one of the scrap cars for a few hours. Then went into one of the brick sheds, bungalows, for a few hours.”

Later that morning, he got a taxi into Peterborough town centre where he carried on drinking, before using a phone box to call his grandmother – Diane Riley, 65 – telling her he had been a “bad boy and hurt someone” and asked if she could pick him up from Peterborough to go back to her home in Skegness.

Riley, along with her daughter – Hutchinson’s aunt, Jeanie Stewart, 45, of Waddington Way, Skegness – drove to Peterborough to collect Hutchinson before providing him with new clothes and trainers.

KC Stuart Trimmer, prosecuting, said to the jury: “He could’ve said someone gave him a gun and it went off in his hands by accident, but he didn’t, because that’s not what happened.

“He had many opportunities to tell the truth about what happened – or his version of events – which he didn’t, because he made it up."

Det Insp Richard Stott, from the Beds, Cambs and Herts Major Crime Unit, said: “This is a tragic case where a father, son and partner has lost his life after getting involved in supplying drugs."

Hutchinson, of Eastern Avenue, Dogsthorpe, was sentenced to a minimum term of 31 years after being found guilty of murder and conspiracy to commit robbery.

Riley and Stewart are due to be sentenced after admitting conspiracy to pervert the course of justice by helping Hutchinson to leave Peterborough following the murder.

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