The two men who stamped and kicked Neill Buchel to death before chopping up his body and dumping it in a Dagenham lake have been sentenced to life behind bars.
Chas Quye, 36, of Stansgate Road, Dagenham, and Elvis Kwiatowski, 36, of Clopton Close, Royston, will both serve a minimum of 21 years in prison for murder and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, Blackfriars Crown Court heard this afternoon. If they are released from prison, they will remain on licence for the rest of their lives.
Buchel’s housemate, Scott “Gary” Hunt, 41, of Braintree Road, was sentenced to five years in prison, Alan Quinn, 28, of Lynette Road, three years (with 18 months to be spent in custody) and Bradley Andison, 47, of Villa Road, Rochester, four years (half of which will be carried out on licence) after all three were found guilty of perverting the course of justice.
During a three month trial, the court heard how Buchel, 39, died from multiple injuries sustained on the night of March 13 last year, including 25 rib fractures and a hemorrhaged pancreas caused by multiple blunt-force injuries.
His left thigh was found by young fisherman Liam Taylor in White Hart Lakes in The Chase, Dagenham, on April 1 – who prodded it with a stick, thinking it to be a dead fish.
Police recovered a further nine dismembered body parts in the lake two days later, with the torso wrapped in material – thought to be a curtain – and weighed down with stones.
A post-mortem revealed 30 visible bruises to the torso including horse-shoe and squared-off markings allegedly caused by shoes. He also had 30 recent bruises around the eyes, jaw and across the scalp, as well as a fractured shoulder.
Quye admitted cutting Buchel into 10 separate pieces alongside Kwiatkowski, before dumping him into the Eastbrookend Country Park lakes.
Sentencing the group, Mr Justice Spencer said: “This was a classic joint enterprise, it matters not in the end who did what, but you must have both realised straight away that Neill Buchel was badly injured.
“Disposing of the body would have been bad enough but what makes this part so much more serious is that you desecrated Neill Buchel’s body by dismembering it.”
Addressing Hunt, he added: “You told the jury that you loved Neill Buchel. Those were hollow words.”
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