Two brothers have been jailed for life for the murder of a man whose decapitated body was set alight in a town centre.

John Grainger, 33, was hit on the head with a hammer, stabbed in the legs, shot in the knee and then in the head at point blank range with a sawn-off shotgun at a flat in Stockport, Greater Manchester.

He was then decapitated with an electric jigsaw, a jury at Manchester crown court was told.

Joseph Jenkins, 30, denied murder but was on Monday convicted of the offence. His brother Anthony, 31, had pleaded guilty to the same charge at an earlier hearing.

Joseph Jenkins was jailed for a minimum of 32 years and Anthony Jenkins for a minimum of 30.

Prosecutor Graham Reeds QC said Grainger's body was put in a holdall and the head placed in a bag, which Joseph and Anthony Jenkins carried from the scene of the murder at the brothers' flat in the Covent Gardens estate.

They used petrol to set light to the body in nearby Wellington Street in the early hours of 26 January.

Reeds said Grainger had a "difficult upbringing" and had consequently lived rough and spent time in prison.

His sister said he was "very sociable and friendly" and that she had thought he was getting his life on track after securing his first flat, in the Victoria Park area of Stockport.

He went out for a drink on the evening of 25 January and came across the brothers in the Egerton Arms, where they were regulars.

Reeds said there appeared to be some connection between the three men and they later went on to the Bakers Vault pub and then the XXL nightclub.

They were seen on CCTV leaving the club at about 1.45am and heading in the direction of the defendants' flat, less than 300 metres away.

Three hours later a passerby noticed something alight in Wellington Street and raised the alarm.

By "complete coincidence" the defendant and his brother were stopped by police about less than a mile away, in Edgeley, at about the same time, said the prosecutor. Officers had been dealing with an unconnected report of two youths acting suspiciously.

Anthony Jenkins was found to have six live shotgun cartridges in his pocket and blood was seen on his white trainers. The shotgun said to have been used to kill Grainger was found the next day underneath a parked car close to where both had been stopped in the street.

Reeds said the victim's body was identified by fingerprints. A postmortem showed he may still have been alive before he was shot in the head.

The prosecutor said both brothers had actively participated in the murder and disposal of the body, regardless of who carried out each action.

Following the sentence, senior investigating officer Andy Tattersall said: "The Jenkins brothers put Mr Grainger through a horrifically violent and cruel attack before shooting him. What followed was nothing short of macabre."

Chief Superintendent Chris Sykes, from Greater Manchester police's Stockport division said: "The gap left by Mr Grainger's untimely death has proved impossible to fill but I hope this sentence goes a little way in helping his loved ones get on with their lives.

"The officer who was initially at the scene and his colleague displayed intuition and professionalism which led to two dangerous individuals being located and arrested at a very early stage before we were aware of Mr Grainger's murder."