Two men have been given life sentences for the murder of a man who was stabbed to death in a Nottingham city flat.
Courtney McLeary, aged 54, and David Francis, aged 61, had previously been found guilty by a jury of murdering 22-year-old Davices Anderson following an eight-week trial at Nottingham Crown Court.
Today (Monday 29 April 2024) they were handed life sentences over the fatal attack.
McLeary was told he will serve 19 years and Francis will serve 16-and-a-half years before they can apply for parole.
Davices was found lying injured in a doorway of a flax complex in High Cross Leys, Nottingham city centre, on the morning of 28 April 2023.
Police officers and paramedics administered first aid at the scene. Davices was taken to hospital where, despite the efforts of medical staff, he died later that morning from a single stab wound to the chest.
Following an extensive investigation, police charged McLeary, of High Cross Leys, and Francis, of Swale Grove, Bingham, with his murder.
Three other suspects, 51-year-old Gregory Bailey, 50-year-old Danny O’Keefe, and 45-year-old Lisa Barlow, were charged with assisting an offender.
Bailey, of Comyn Gardens, St Ann’s, and O’Keefe, of Keswick Court, Sneinton, were found guilty of assisting an offender.
They were both jailed for two years.
Barlow, of High Cross Leys, pleaded guilty to assisting an offender. She was also given a two-year prison sentence.
The court heard that Davices, Francis, McLeary, and Barlow were in the flat when Davices was set upon by McLeary and Francis and fatally stabbed.
When he was interviewed by police, McLeary accepted that he had a knife in his hand and he ‘may’ have stabbed Davices while they were wrestling on the floor.
After the incident, Davices fled the flat before he collapsed to the floor in the communal entrance foyer to the complex.
Minutes later, McLeary and Barlow were seen stepping over him before they left the building.
The court heard that after McLeary and Barlow had left the flat complex following the stabbing, the pair went to Bailey’s house.
Bailey claimed during his police interview that he didn’t know that McLeary and Barlow ‘had done anything’ and that he wasn’t aware that Barlow had left her blood-stained bright pink coat behind at his address.
McLeary and Barlow had also attended O’Keefe’s address after the stabbing.
When interviewed by police, O’Keefe admitted they had been to his home and that he knew McLeary was wanted for murder. He said he was scared of McLeary, so was unable to alert police.
• Davices Anderson: Family pay tribute after man stabbed to death in Nottingham
