Adam Clapham death: Rotherham gang guilty of torture murder over £300 debt

Adam Clapham, 31, was found dead in September 2022

Five people have been found guilty of murdering a man who they had imprisoned in a cellar in Rotherham and tortured to death over a £300 drug debt.

Adam Clapham, 31, was tied to a chair, beaten with a hammer and doused with boiling water in an "utterly horrific" five-hour attack in September 2022.

The gang who killed him wanted to "send out a message they should not be crossed", Sheffield Crown Court heard.

A sixth defendant was convicted of causing grievous bodily harm.

During a seven-week trial, jurors heard that Mr Clapham and a second man had been imprisoned by gang members in the basement of a house in Spring Street in the early hours of 18 September last year.

The two men had been blamed for £300 going missing from the property, which was used for dealing drugs.

They were subjected to "very serious violence and humiliation", including being forced to perform a sex act on each other while the gang filmed them, the trial was told.

The two men had been held in the cellar of a house on Spring Street in Rotherham

The second man, who cannot be named, managed to escape the basement and was later found badly injured and barefoot in Rotherham town centre.

He told police he had been taken captive after stopping at the house to buy drugs.

Officers later found Mr Clapham's naked body in a sleeping bag in the house's dining room.

He had suffered 214 injuries, most of them caused by stabs, kicks and punches to his head, torso and limbs, the court heard.

Mr Clapham died of a brain injury and blood loss, a post-mortem examination found.

'Brutal vengeance'

At Sheffield Crown Court on Monday, four men and a teenage boy were convicted of murder, false imprisonment, causing grievous bodily harm and two counts of rape. They were:

• Arbab Yusuf, 24, of Lord Street, Rotherham

• Muhammed Ashraf, 18, of Fraser Road, Rotherham

• Kieron Millar, 30, of Mount Pleasant, Rotherham

• Robert Crookes, 31, of no fixed abode

• A 17-year-old boy, who cannot be named because of his age

Lynette Myers, 39, of Hounsfield Crescent, Rotherham, was found guilty of causing grievous bodily harm and false imprisonment. She was cleared of murder, manslaughter and rape.

All six are due to be sentenced on 24 July.

Following the guilty verdicts, Claire Macdonald, from the Crown Prosecution Service, said "the level and extent of the violence inflicted" by the gang was "utterly horrific".

"It is absolutely tragic that one man has lost his life and another suffered appalling injuries as a result of the brutal vengeance inflicted by this gang.

"They are now facing considerable prison sentences."

A seventh defendant, Martin Shaw, 44, of Norfolk Court, Rotherham, was cleared of assisting an offender.