A JOCKEY was given a life sentence this week for the murder of a former Newcastle United reserve striker.
Gary Walton's badly disfigured body was discovered behind the Miners Arms pub in Coundon, on July 17, last year.
Christopher Martin McGrath, 23, of Brancepeth Manor Farm, Brancepeth, near Durham, pleaded guilty to Mr Walton's murder at Teesside Crown Court on Tuesday.
Mr Walton, 37, of Collingwood Street, Coundon, had been beaten about the face with a half brick and strangled.
Jailing McGrath, Justice Anne Rafferty, said "Quite why you turned from a decent well-rounded individual into the mad man you must have resembled is a mystery."
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