A CONMAN was jailed for a minimum 40 years today and told he will never be paroled after the cold-blooded execution of his parents to collect his £230,000 inheritance.

Convicted fraudster Stephen Seddon, 46, from Seaham, County Durham, had once before tried to murder his father Robert, 68, and mother Patricia, 65, by driving into a canal with them strapped in the back seats in a faked road accident.

Seddon then played the hero in the aftermath of the accident, boasting of his supposed rescue attempts after aborting the murder plan when bystanders went to their aid in the submerged car.

But after that plan failed, four months later he blasted the couple to death with a sawn-off shotgun at their suburban home in Sale, Greater Manchester.

His parents had made him sole beneficiary of their £230,000 estate in their will - and paid with their lives.

Seddon was given a mandatory life sentence for two counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder after being convicted by a jury at Manchester Crown Court yesterday.

But Mr Justice Hamblen told the defendant that, in his case, life should mean life and he ordered Seddon to serve a whole-life term - so he will never be released.

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