Razvan Sirbu murder: Two men found guilty

Two men have been found guilty of murdering a Romanian rough sleeper who was attacked with a meat cleaver.

Razvan Sirbu, 21, was found dead at the Loose Valley Conservation Area in Tovil, near Maidstone, Kent, last May, where he had been living in a tent.

Charlie White and Alex Macdonald, both 19, had denied murder but were convicted at Maidstone Crown Court.

Jurors found a third defendant, Jimmy Buckley, 20, who had been deemed unfit to plead, also "did the act of murder".

A post-mortem examination showed Mr Sirbu died from blunt force trauma to the head and body.

Alex Macdonald (left) and Charlie White will be sentenced on Tuesday

The trial heard how White, of no fixed address, Macdonald, of Regency Place, Maidstone, and Buckley, of Capell Close, Coxheath, had been in the area on the night of 6 May because they planned to steal a sit-on lawn mower.

They denied they had deliberately set out to rob Mr Sirbu, who had come to the UK from Romania in search of a better life.

They will be sentenced on Tuesday.

Judge Jeremy Carey said: "This was a brutal and sustained attack on a defenceless young man who meant no harm and posed no threat.

"It was a shameful and senseless murder of mindless brutality."

In a victim impact statement, Mr Sirbu's mother Marinella Gafita said the death of her son had left her "crushed to the ground".

"He came to the UK in the hope he would find himself a job and build a better future for himself.

"We thought it would be a new beginning full of hope but it's proven to be the end of my beloved son.

"He was the apple of my eye and I would have given my life for him.

"The death of my child broke my heart. I'm crushed to the ground, I feel destroyed."

His grandmother, who brought him up as a child, told BBC South East she had been consumed with grief since his death.

Angela Gafita said nine months before he was killed he had completed a college diploma in cookery.

"He went to work in the UK to achieve something, but I never thought for a second he'd never come home, that I would never see him again.

"My heart is shattered, everything is gone," she said.