Teenage thugs beat rough sleeper to death and laughed as he lay in street

Two teenage thugs who brutally murdered a vulnerable homeless man were arrested for his killing at the same time their elder brother was awaiting trial for a separate murder. Brothers Connor and Brandon Doran, aged 17 and 14 respectively, along with a mate, were found guilty of murdering dad Kevin Bennett.

The boys attacked Mr Bennett in the early hours of August 17, 2012 after the homeless man had spent the night drinking at the Queens Arms' pub in Walton, Liverpool. However, as the two thugs were being interrogated by the police, their older brother Ryan, 23 at the time, was gearing up to face a murder charge at crown court for a different, but equally horrific and brutal crime.

Ryan Doran launched an unprovoked attack on dad-of-one Wayne Mitchell as he walked home from the pub on Townsend Lane, Anfield, in March of the same year. In related news, man brutally kills a woman on first date and leave her body parts around town.

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By the time the younger brothers were sentenced, only the siblings' younger sister was not behind bars after their mum, Linda, was jailed for providing them a false alibi and their other brother, Jordan, was sent down for taking pictures in the courtroom.

Connor and Brandon Doran and their mate Simon Evans, 14, were causing mayhem around their Walton neighbourhood when they discovered Kevin snoozing in an alleyway behind an Iceland store on County Road at around 5am. Mr Bennett, 53, had been caught on CCTV departing the pub in the early hours clutching a plastic bag filled with beer, reports the Liverpool Echo.

The boys approached the slumbering man when Connor, the ringleader of the trio, challenged Evans to "do him in". Connor kept egging him on until he eventually caved in and started booting the defenceless man. Brandon acted as a lookout as the assault escalated with Mr Bennett receiving brutal strikes to his head and body.

Following 20 minutes of relentless violence, the boys abandoned Mr Bennett in the grime, fleeing whilst cackling. The badly injured man managed to drag himself to the front of the supermarket before crumpling. Staff rang the emergency services, with Mr Bennett dying from his wounds six days later after an infection set in.

The boys never came forward voluntarily with the Doran brothers allegedly boasting of an attack to family members. Days later, Evans confessed to his mum that he and the two brothers were the ones responsible for Mr Bennett's death. Court proceedings later heard that the Doran brothers' mum Linda had provided a false alibi for her sons in the early stages of the police probe, delaying officers in apprehending the perpetrators.

At their trial, the trio denied murder but were found guilty by a jury. The identities of the three boys were initially protected due to their age, however, the judge ruled during sentencing that it was in the public interest for them to be named.

"Leader of the pack" Connor Doran was handed a life sentence with a minimum of 12 years. Evans, who was described as a "model pupil" before he met the Dorans, received an eight-year sentence while Brandon Doran, who didn't participate in the violence but kept watch during the attack, was detained for six years.

The court heard that the Dorans were a challenging group of children and their mum struggled to control them. A judge later described her as a "pathetic and tragic character" who had proven herself to be "unwilling and unable to shoulder the responsibility of motherhood".

She was jailed for 31 months for providing the police with a false alibi. The Doran family's lack of respect for the criminal proceedings was evident when their then 21-year-old brother, Jordan, was jailed for contempt of court for using a phone to take pictures of the courtroom during the trial. Connor and Brandon showed no emotion during the sentencing, in stark contrast with Evans who reportedly broke down upon hearing his sentence, finally coming to terms with the consequences of his actions.

The year before the trial, Ryan Doran was jailed for life for a cold blooded murder of his own. The thug launched an unprovoked attack of 42-year-old groundsman Mr Mitchell who suffered a fractured skull and bleeding on the brain. Passers-by called him an ambulance but he waved them away and tried to walk home.

However, he collapsed in an alley a few hundred yards away and died days later in hospital. Minutes after delivering the fatal blow, the attacker walked into the nearby International Chip Shop demanding tissues for a cut on his hand caused by the breaking bottle, before attacking customers and staff members.

He denied murder but was found guilty after a trial with the jury taking less than an hour to convict him. The court heard he had drunk 10 bottles of Budweiser, smoked cannabis and snorted cocaine when he attacked Mr Mitchell.

He was handed a minimum term of 15 years and concurrent sentences for battery, racially aggravated assault and threats. A member of Mr Mitchell's family shouted "scum" as he was led to the cells.

Simon Evans, the boy who assisted the younger Doran brothers, was later rewarded with a reduction to his jail term because of his "exceptional" behaviour behind bars.

Speaking in 2018, senior judge Justice Cheema-Grubb said of the teenager: "I am sure that the time has come to mark this young man's positive approach to his life, his commitment to the service of others and his willingness to take every possible step he can to achieve his long-term life goals without repeating the errors of his youth." She cut a year off his prison sentence.

However, two years earlier, Brandon Doran wasn't so lucky. He too applied for a cut to allow for an early chance of parole with his lawyers arguing he had shown himself to be a "decent prisoner".

But Justice McGowan took a different view, upholding the view that he had not done enough to justify cutting his minimum term.