Samuel Field, 40, has been jailed for the murder of an elderly man years after attacking two children.
A paranoid cannabis user who tortured his 93-year-old friend for more than 24 hours while making voice recordings about a conspiracy has been jailed for murder.
Samuel Field, 40, interrogated Martin Glynn while punching, kicking, stamping on and strangling the elderly man at Field’s home in Desborough, Northamptonshire, in September 2024.
Field, who was jailed for attacking two children years before, denied murder but was found guilty earlier this month after less than four hours of jury deliberations at the end of an 11-day free trial at Northampton Crown Court.
The defendant, who said “it’s lies” from the dock while prosecutor Adrian Langdale KC addressed the judge during a sentencing hearing on Friday, was handed a life sentence with a minimum term of 22 years.
Mr Langdale said Field was in an “aggressive paranoid state” when he tortured his friend of nearly 20 years by repeatedly beating him.
Mr Glynn had been fit and healthy enough to make a journey of more than two hours, using multiple buses and a walking aid, to the defendant’s home in Gold Street, from his home in Northampton, on September 19.
In voice recordings made by Field, he talked about a conspiracy that “everyone is in for him” and accused Mr Glynn, who gave the defendant £200 cash every week, of giving a key to his home to an Irish traveller.
Mr Langdale had told jurors that Field was “effectively torturing and interrogating” Mr Glynn as he tried to get him to confess until he called an ambulance around 28 hours after the attack started.
The court heard Mr Glynn was “motionless” on the living room floor for “many, many hours”.
Mr Glynn died around three months later from pneumonia after spending a period of time in hospital where he was “deteriorating” because of injuries to his brain.
Sentencing Field, Mr Justice Eyre said: “It goes without saying that Martin Glynn was in no position to put up any resistance to this attack.
“You knew he was at your mercy and that did not stop you.
“You were attacking him in anger and you also wanted him to admit giving your keys away.”
Mr Justice Eyre added: “He stood by you when others, wisely, had kept their distance.”
The judge said Field chose to keep taking cannabis leading up to the attack despite knowing it was making his mental health worse and made him a danger to others.
The court heard Field was jailed after he assaulted a three-year-old child by striking their head and legs in 2007 and punched the head of a one-year-old baby who was in a cot in 2008.
Mr Langdale said the attacks on the children are “chilling echoes” to the murder of Mr Glynn because Field “targeted the head area of vulnerable individuals” in all three cases.
The judge said: “There is no doubt that those offences show that you are prepared to use violence towards those who are vulnerable and at your mercy.”
Field, who sacked his legal team and defended himself towards the end of his trial and during sentencing, stood up in the dock and told the judge he admits to striking Mr Glynn four times.
He said: “Martin was a very close and dear friend to me.
“I admit to what I’ve done and I did assault him, and for that I deserve to be sentenced, but I never intended to murder him or for him to die.
“It’s been extremely difficult to be in a situation where I’m told I murdered him because of him choking on a carrot which caused pneumonia which led to his death.
“It just doesn’t add up to me, your honour.”
He told the court that he did smoke cannabis, but not at the time of the murder.
In a victim impact statement, read to court by the prosecutor on behalf of Mr Glynn’s family who live in Ireland, his relatives said he was a “quiet, soft-spoken man”.
They added: “The impact of losing Martin has been very distressing for our family.
“Such evil bestowed on such a kind, gentle, caring, loving, giving, good humoured, inoffensive soul.
“It was very upsetting to hear he suffered so much.”
Detective Sergeant Megan Scotney, of the East Midlands special operations unit, said: “My deepest condolences continue to be given to the family of Martin Glynn who have been left truly devastated by his murder.
“Mr Glynn was a kind, gentle, loyal man, who was stripped of his independence by the cruel and calculated actions of Samuel Field, who by his own admission described the pair as being best friends for nearly 20 years.”
