A TEENAGER has been locked up for life after he murdered a man who was having sex in a graveyard where his grandfather was buried.
Matthew Ward, 19, battered James Wood to death with a 70cm metal bar in St Michael's and All Angels Church in South Normanton in the early hours of November 9, 2008.
He pleaded guilty to murder at Nottingham Crown Court and was given a mandatory life sentence set at a minimum of 13 years before parole.
Ward, who lived in Church Street, South Normanton, near the church where the killing took place, had been walking home from a night out at the pub with friend Samuel Avison.
Mr Avison then saw a couple having sex in the graveyard.
Ward said to Avison: "Are you joking? Are you serious?"
He said his grandfather and grandmother were buried there and it was disrespectful.
Ward returned home and told his girlfriend there was someone being disrespectful in the graveyard.
He picked up a metal bar that weighed 1.71 kg, which he called "the kosh", returned to the graveyard and hit 30-year-old Mr Wood on the head three or four times.
Mr Wood suffered a deep cut to the right eyebrow, a complex fracture at the base of his skull and his jaw was split in two.
Prosecutor Nicholas Dean said that it was likely Mr Wood faced his attacker when he was hit with the bar more or less vertically on the front of the face while trying to defend himself at the same time.
Mr Wood, a tool setter in Pinxton, lived in Duke Street, South Normanton, with his wife Michelle and three young children. He was one of the children's biological father.
Ward lived in Church Street with his girlfriend Victoria Thorniley and he worked as a driver's mate at the time.
Mr Wood and his wife had been in the Devonshire pub in the early hours of November 11 and Ward had been there separately with his own group of friends.
Ward had drunk the equivalent of eight to ten pints of beer. After leaving the Devonshire pub the Woods walked towards their home. Wood and Avison left together and walked in the same direction.
"James and Michelle took advantage of the relative privacy of the churchyard to have sex," said Mr Dean.
"As Ward and Avison passed the churchyard, Avison glimpsed a couple engaged in sexual activity. He mentioned it to Ward."
After the killing, Ward said Michelle Wood was there at the time of the attack.
She was found in a "disheveled state" with her left shoe missing and could not remember what had happened.
Ward burnt his bloodstained jacket at a nearby recreation ground and dumped his clothes, the metal bar and his jeans at Codnor Reservoir.
Ward had initially lied when he was interviewed by police, but accepted he was responsible at the first opportunity in court.
Defending, Julian Goose said: "It was a tragedy for everyone concerned."
He told the court that Ward's grandfather died in 2005 and he was particularly close to him.
Judge Michael Stokes QC, Recorder of Nottingham, said he was prepared to accept that the trigger for what Ward did was what he thought was happening in the churchyard where Ward's grandfather was buried.
"One thing is plain, nothing, as you yourself accept, could possibly have justified your gross over-reaction to what you thought was happening in that churchyard," he said.
"It is conceded at the time you used that lengthy and heavy piece of metal to strike him around the head.
"You intended to kill him. I'm prepared to accept that when you left the vicinity of the churchyard initially to go back to your flat murder as such was not in your mind but of course by going back and arming yourself with that piece of metal you put yourself in a situation where perhaps even minor irritation might cause you to behave in the way you did."
