THE widow of a Warrington man killed by drunken thugs has called for the death penalty to be brought back.

Helen Newlove, 45, spoke after three teenagers were given life sentences for the murder of her husband Garry.

"In my opinion they should pay the ultimate price. We need to think about the death penalty because it's the only way these kids are going to wake up to the pain they are causing," she told a national newspaper.

"If we had the electric chair like in America, I'd watch them fry without the slightest feeling of sympathy. It's an eye for an eye in my book."

Mr Newlove, 47, a salesman with a plastics company, left his home on August 10 last year to remonstrate with a group of teenage thugs who had damaged his wife's car.

Mr Newlove, who had previously beaten stomach cancer, was kicked "like a football" in front of his terrified wife and daughters, Chester Crown Court was told.

On Monday, the gang's ringleader Adam Swellings, 19, of Crewe, was ordered to serve a minimum of 17 years behind bars.

Swellings had been released from custody for an assault just hours before the attack on Mr Newlove. He was freed on bail on condition he stayed away from Warrington but he never left the town. Instead he met up with accomplices Stephen Sorton and Jordan Cunliffe and began a drink and drugs binge.

Sorton, 17, of Warrington, with whom he had committed a previous violent attack, was locked up for a minimum of 15 years. Cunliffe, 16, formerly of Warrington, was sentenced to a minimum of 12 years.

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