Drug dealer jailed for killing and burning a disabled neighbor for noise complaint

A drug dealer who killed his neighbor for making a noise complaint has been sentenced to life in prison.

36-year-old Michael Bryant was told he will have to serve at least 28 years for the murder of the disabled Alan Wyatt before he can be considered for parole.

But the sentencing judge warned him that he could spend the rest of his life behind bars if the parole board does not deem him fit for release.

“Kind and lonely” Mr. Wyatt was brutally murdered by Bryant, 36, after he told him he was “fed up with his behavior” in Gillingham, Kent.

Bryant drastically changed his guilty plea midway through the Maidstone Crown Court trial in March, and pleaded guilty to murder and arson.

The jury was therefore released and faces a retrial on the murder charge early next year.

But at Maidstone Crown Court, Kent, today he finally admitted his guilt to the murder charge.

He admitted to inflicting “catastrophic head injuries” to the 68-year-old amputee, before starting a fire on his property.

She was also missing skin on her body due to a corrosive liquid like bleach or a fire accelerator.

An attempt was then made to set his body on fire with a corrosive liquid or an accelerant on his ground floor apartment.

Prosecutor Oliver Saxby QC said Wyatt was “ fortunately ” dead from the sustained assault at the time it occurred, but those who discovered the fire, including his brother and sister-in-law, at around 10.30 a.m. found ‘a scene Of horror’.

Flames up to six feet high came from Mr. Wyatt’s bed area, where his body lay, and blood splattered on the walls and furniture.

The smoke detector had also been ripped from the ceiling and was later found in Bryant’s home.

Wyatt, a wheelchair-bound father of three, spent time living in Brighton, East Sussex before moving to Gillingham.

The court heard that he had recently reconnected with one of his sons after several years, at the time of his death.

In jailing Bryant, Judge Adele Williams said he had carried out a ‘ruthless and prolonged murder done to win’, first attacking Mr. Wyatt while he was sitting in his living room before dragging him into the bedroom to continue the attack.

“You killed this vulnerable man in a brutal, vicious and horrifying way. You inflicted a cruel and prolonged attack on him,” he told Bryant.

“You killed a fragile and defenseless amputee … He couldn’t defend himself.

“You may have been mad at Alan Wyatt, but I’m sure you intended to rob him and intended to kill when you went to the flat.

“The attack was merciless and protracted. You tried to dispose of the body by fire and have done everything possible to evade responsibility for your crime and hide your actions.”

Wyatt had his left leg amputated after developing circulation problems in 2014 and relied on a wheelchair and mobility scooter to get around. He was also carrying a colostomy bag.

After living with and caring for her mother who suffered from dementia from 2012 until her death in 2017, she moved into her specially adapted one-bedroom apartment.

Wyatt’s kindness was “easily exploited” by Bryant, allegedly a habitual drug user and an occasional drug dealer, the court heard.

The couple were initially friends, and Bryant helped the retiree.

But in 2018, Wyatt had started complaining to authorities about the various touches and froings at Bryant’s home.

Just six days before his murder, Wyatt had informed a police community security officer and a city hall employee of his concerns, which included the alleged tampering with a meter and litter scattered in the yard.

Saxby told the court: “On the morning of February 14, 2019, on Valentine’s Day, Wyatt was brutally murdered inside his apartment.

“He had been the subject of a sustained attack with at least three weapons.

“He had catastrophic head injuries. He had a fractured skull, a severe brain injury, and multiple fractures to his eye sockets, nose, cheekbones,

upper and lower jaws.

“His face, as the pathologist said, had been burned.”

Bryant is believed to have taken a mixture of cocaine, heroin and cannabis on the day of the attack.

He was arrested in the early morning of February 15, while he was sleeping at the entrance of a store.

His face was still stained with Mr. Wyatt’s blood, he had been using his bank card, and the police found many of Mr. Wyatt’s belongings, such as food and decorations, at his home.

Bryant, of Firethorn Close in Gillingham, tried to blame others for the murder, including a woman Wyatt had become friends with.

When forensics linked him to the fatal attack, he claimed that others were to blame. He said he had tried to stop him, but he got too scared and fled the floor.

In a moving statement to the court, Wyatt’s family described him as their “cheerful, happy and confident lifeguard” who was “the life and soul of a party as he spun in his wheelchair on the dance floor.”

The court heard that Bryant, who has 13 prior convictions for violence and dishonesty, was born a heroin addict and his addicted parents died when he was seven.