This article is more than 5 months old

This article is more than 5 months old

A teenager who lured a “gentle, kind-hearted” sales assistant to a remote beauty spot on a date and stabbed him to death has been locked up for a minimum of 24 years.

Alex Davies, 18, was murdered in Parbold, Lancashire, by Brian Healless, also 18, after they agreed a rendezvous through the dating app Grindr.

Healless, from Chorley, tried to set up similar outdoor meetings with four other men on Grindr in the days after the killing, Preston crown court heard.

He had told Davies, from Skelmersdale, he was “not out yet” and suggested a “discreet spot” halfway between their homes for their first meeting.

The defendant stabbed him 128 times at the top of Parbold Hill and dragged the Home Bargains worker face down by his collar in the mud, while still alive, and covered his body with branches and leaves.

Healless was then captured on CCTV on the afternoon of 29 April last year calmly riding away from the scene on his mountain bike with his victim’s rucksack on his back.

Sentencing on Tuesday, the judge, Mark Brown, the honorary recorder of Preston, told him: “Alex was a kind-hearted, gentle and hard-working young man who would never have harmed anyone.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Alex Davies, 18, was’ much-loved’, his family said. Photograph: Lancashire police/PA

“You lulled him to his death and executed the killing in a savage way. You were undoubtedly setting him up to kill and you are a manipulative, calculating and devious person.

“It is extremely fortuitous that you were arrested before anyone else suffered the same fate.”

Psychiatrists who examined Healless, who came to England from Lithuania at the age of seven, agreed he had paranoid schizophrenia at the time of the killing.

But jurors rejected his defence that his responsibility for the killing was diminished by his mental state and unanimously convicted him on Monday of murder.

Brown told Healless: “I am satisfied that such was the planning, premeditation and the nature of the killing that your culpability is not reduced significantly.”

On 1 May, Davies’s body was discovered by a local gamekeeper who reported seeing an arm under a pile of broken conifers.

A postmortem showed he died from multiple stab wounds and asphyxiation. He had also been beaten on the head and face.

Healless was arrested on 3 May and a search of his family home uncovered the victim’s headphones, spare phone and wallet with the defendant’s bank card inside – which the judge said were intended as trophies.

Healless told doctors that “a voice in his head” said he was going to be harmed on Parbold Hill and that he attacked Davies in fear for his own life.

The defendant explained he had taken a knife to the scene for his protection and then tried to contact other young men because he “just wanted to meet somebody”.

He said he was sexually interested in men and women but had never had a relationship.

Stephen Meadowcroft QC, defending, said: “His parents are both in court and have been throughout the trial. They have told me they are desperately shocked at what has happened and had no idea he was going through any problem period. His brothers did not realise either and it all came as a complete shock.”

Healless will not be released from custody until the Parole Board decides on “good evidence” that he is completely safe, said Brown.

DI Tracey McMurdo of Lancashire police said: “Alex was a young man known for being friendly, open and trusting, and at the age of 18 he had his whole life ahead of him.

“His family have been left utterly devastated by his death and they must be praised for conducting themselves with nothing but dignity throughout this investigation and trial.”

Davies’s mother, Beverley, said: “We, as a family, would like to thank the police and the prosecution for all their diligence and continued support throughout the trial.

“We would also like to thank the judge, and also with his persistence in seeing the trial through at this very difficult time due to the coronavirus. We are so relieved that the jury came to the right decision and common sense prevailed.

“Although the verdict won’t bring back Alex, he was much loved by us all. A kind and gentle boy, the antithesis of his murderer who we believe should never be released and will always be a danger to society.”