Barman is jailed for life after murdering homosexual lover

Before fleeing the Seven Stars pub in Harrogate Road, Greengates, Bradford, Callum Adams put a hand-written notice in the window saying the pub was closed due to ill-health and then travelled by taxi to Leeds railway station where he caught a train to London.

When the pub failed to open later that day, a concerned regular contacted the police and after they forced their way into the locked premises they found the body of 46-year-old landlord Kevan Worrall in an upstairs bedroom.

Plymouth-born Adams, from Stevenson Road, Balby, Doncaster, was arrested in Yeovil a few days after Mr Worrall's death in September last year and during a series of police interviews he denied any involvement in the killing.

The court was told he "feigned floods of tears" after he was told his partner was dead.

He told a friend on internet social networking site Facebook: "I'm so gutted… I can't stop crying."

At the start of his trial last month Adams accepted being responsible for the former Maltby miner's death, but claimed he never intended to kill or cause serious harm to his partner.

The jury at Bradford Crown Court heard evidence of arguments between the two men on the day before Mr Worrall's death and Adams claimed that the killing happened during an early hours struggle between them on an inflatable mattress in the bedroom.

Adams accepted pushing Mr Worrall's face into the mattress, but said he panicked when he realised that his lover was dead.

The jury of eight women and four men spent more than four hours deliberating yesterday before returning a unanimous guilty verdict on the murder charge.

The verdict was greeted with shouts of "yes" and applause from the public gallery.

Deputy High Court Judge Sir Geoffrey Grigson told Adams that it was an aggravating feature of the case that he had attempted to implicate another man in the killing, but said he also accepted that there had been some provocative conduct from Mr Worrall.

"You killed Kevan Worrall, a man you professed to love," the judge told Adams.

"You took your opportunity to suffocate him by holding his face onto a mattress.

"As you know the sentence for murder is mandatory and that is imprisonment for life."