THREE men were last night starting life sentences for the punishment beating murder of a father-of-two they wrongly suspected of stealing a pensioner’s savings.

George Thomas, 52, his son, Stephen, 30, and his friend Andrew Jackson, 25, were told they must serve a minimum of 20 years behind bars for killing John Newton, 45.

Grandfather George Thomas Sr, 77, walked free after a jury at Teesside Crown Court cleared him of any involvement in the killing of his best friend, Mr Newton. He looked bemused as he left court after being acquitted.

A retrial will be held in the new year for a fifth man, 25- year-old Lee Woodier, after the jury was unable to reach a verdict on the murder charge against him.

The trial judge branded welder George Thomas as “the instigator”, his scaffolder son as “as keen as anyone” and Jackson “the recruited thug”

as he jailed them yesterday.

He said the gang – fuelled by drink, and some by drugs – had seen vulnerable Mr Newton as an easy target as they tried to recover Mr Thomas Sr’s money.

Mr Newton was snatched from his home in Redcar, on March 19, bundled into the back of a van, and beaten in an attempt to extract a confession.

The court heard that the innocent father-of-two – an epileptic with a drink problem – suffered 60 separate injuries and died in hospital two days later from brain damage.

Judge Peter Fox told the trio that “the mental and physical suffering that man had inflicted upon him prior to his death” was an “exacerbating feature” of the case.

He said they knew they were taking the law into their own hands, and added: “There was a significant degree of planning in what you did, and premeditation.

“At this stage, and it may be for always, it is not possible, from this perspective, to determine which of you did exactly what to that poor man who you killed.

“But what’s plain, George Thomas Jr, is that you instigated it. It was your rage which recruited your son and it was you who led the posse to John Newton’s home.

“You were all fired up with drink, and plainly from the photographs taken, over a substantial period of time, you were relishing what you were about.

“You ransacked that man’s house before capturing him, forcing him into your van and had him as your prisoner for the following few hours.

“Along the line somewhere, and I judge repeatedly, he was struck so severely that for the rest of his short life, he suffered badly.”

He told Stephen Thomas: “You recruited Andrew Jackson, I have not the slightest doubt... you were as keen as anyone to do what you then, in your perverted way, saw should be done.”

Jackson, who left a number of messages on his friend’s answerphone about the plan hours before the attack, was described as “the recruited thug, happy enough to go along”.

His barrister, John Dodd, told the court that, despite his apparent boasting about his involvement afterwards, he did not know how badly hurt Mr Newton was.

“Nothing we say is intended to divert from the obvious fact that the Newton family have suffered a grave tragedy,” Mr Dodd said. “It plainly is a tragedy for him also.

“It is plain that Jackson had no idea of the gravity of the injuries that had been inflicted upon Mr Newton, and the state he was in at that very time.

“I invite the court to accept that it was not in any sense gloating about the imminent death of a fellow human being.”

Andrew Turton, for George Thomas Jr, said his client – like the others – did not set out with the intention of killing Mr Newton, and had not been violent during the journey.

“It was simply a misconceived plan to lead to the retrieval of stolen family money,” Mr Turton said. “The episodes of violence were intermittent and brief, rather than constant.”

Jamie Hill, for Stephen Thomas, said: “He knows he has caused immeasurable heartache for the Newton family by his actions, and also to his own family, and for that he is deeply sorry.”

Mr Newton, who had a key to the pensioner’s home in Redcar where he spent many evenings, was one of two people suspected of taking up to £35,000 and a safe.

Yesterday, it emerged for the first time that there was no evidence to suggest Mr Newton was responsible for the burglary, a fortnight before the killing.

The prosecution alleged that George Thomas Sr “set the ball rolling” for the kidnap and murder by telling his family about the missing money and who he suspected.

It was claimed that he knew his son and grandson “would take up the cudgels on his behalf” because they had done so in the past when he had problems with people.

The jury cleared him of murder after a week of deliberations, and of kidnap on the directions of the trial judge.