Owoo killers get two more years

The two killers of tragic Bilston teenager Shane Owoo today had their sentences increased by two years by the Court of Appeal after they were ruled "unduly lenient".

The 16-year-old drowned after Christopher Lewis and Marvin Walker forced him to go for a "punishment swim" in a water-filled claypit on September 29 last year.

Three judges in London agreed with the Attorney General Baroness Scotland that the original five-and-a-half year terms imposed on Lewis, 23, and Walker, 21, for killing Shane Owoo were not enough and added two years in each case.

Sir Igor Judge, sitting with Mr Justice Simon and Mr Justice Akenhead, said that there needed to be deterrence "against this kind of bullying behaviour with its unwanted and sometimes unanticipated disastrous consequences".

A third man, Tobias Davies, admitted helping beat terrified Shane, who was pushed over a wall and thrown into nettles before being forced into the pool.

Davies, of Frost Street, Ettingshall, was jailed for 12 months for assault but was released almost immediately for the time he spent on remand.

Shane's family could not be reached for comment today. His mother Linda Fox moved out of the family home in Addison Place, the Lunt, shortly before the sentencing in April.