A FORMER guardsman was jailed for life yesterday for the shotgun murder of a drug dealer.

But Anthony Bottrill, 41, a martial arts instructor, shed no light on why he killed cocaine dealer Bryan Scott, 26, in a showfield on Teesside.

The judge told him that he would recommend to the Home Secretary a long life sentence.

Yesterday, it was revealed that, in 1977, Bottrill was convicted of manslaughter after two gay men were knifed to death and robbed in a flat in Brixton, London.

A fellow Coldstream guardsman pleaded guilty to murdering the two men.

Bottrill was freed after two years, said prosecutor Franz Muller, at Teesside Crown Court.

A handwriting expert linked Bottrill to three anonymous letters in the Scott killing, at Kirkleatham Showground, near Redcar, on March 18.

One claimed that the writer was there when Scott was blasted in the back with a sawn-off shotgun, and the others threw suspicion on another man, Dean Taylor.

Bottrill, who was Mr Taylor's estranged wife's instructor, was given a jail sentence of six years for making a threat to kill him.

He denied writing the letters or being involved in the murder. Mr Justice Maurice Kay said that it was a cold and callous execution.

He said: "Because you and others have chosen not to tell the truth about it, it is not easy to know why you did it and whether you were acting on the part of others rather than on your own."

The jury convicted Bottrill, of High Street West, Redcar, by a ten to two majority of the murder of Scott, of France Street, Redcar