An Englishman who showed “not a flicker of remorse” for the brutal murder of a Portuguese man in Crawley, UK, earlier this year has at last been sentenced to life imprisonment.
According to newspapers, this may well only mean 15 years behind bars as there is no evidence that Daniel Palmer actually planned the murder.
Nonetheless, it is a case that shocked communities in both countries.
João Esteves, 45, was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The unemployed man with a history of psychiatric problems had arrived in the UK intent of finding work. When his money ran out and he realised he needed to return to Portugal, he had been dissuaded from sleeping rough at Gatwick Airport and sent instead to a nearby shelter. This was full, and that is how Esteves came to be wandering the streets on the night he came face to face with Palmer – an angry young man with a string of previous convictions for violence and battery.
During the three-week trial that ended this week in Lewes Crown Court, judge and jury heard how Palmer had frogmarched Esteves to a secluded alleyway before brutally beating him and strangling him to death. He then took pictures on his mobile phone as Esteves spluttered and coughed in agony.
