9:54am Wednesday 26th September 2001
AN ALCOHOLIC who battered his best friend to death was jailed today for 27 months at the Old Bailey.
Tiny pensioner Brian Grossman, 67, bled to death on the floor of his Orpington home after a drunken row with depressed flatmate Robert Warner.
And wracked with remorse, 44-year-old Warner wandered the streets before confessing all.
The defendant who drank at least six litres of cider a day, told police he only had “a hazy recollection” of the fight in Marion Court, Chipperfield Road.
Prosecutor Mark Dennis said: “Warner said he was blind drunk and hit him twice with a lump of wood, once landing on his arm and once on the side of his head.
“He accepts he struck him. The lump of wood had a nail protruding from it which caused the wound to the arm and pierced an artery. He bled to death.”
Mr Dennis told how Warner rang a friend after consoling himself with more booze and said: “I've done a bad thing, a really bad thing. I killed Brian and I'm going to go to prison. I couldn't help it, he came towards me.”
Defending Richard Ferguson said: “Warner comes from a family with a medical history of depression and alcohol abuse.
“He was a drunken down-and-out living in conditions of squalor and filth. His relationship with the deceased was like that of a father and son. “The two no-hopers were clinging to each other for support.
“This is a depressing case of two rather pathetic beings who provided each other with their only form of company.”
Mr Dennis said of Mr Grossman: “He had fallen on hard times and had little money.
“He was an alcoholic who would drink whenever he had some money.
“Warner was his best and only real friend and they had a close relationship with arguments and scuffles when one or other had had too much to drink.”
Warner had earlier denied murdering Mr Grossman but pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter.
Passing sentence, Judge Peter Beaumont told Warner: “You took a life in circumstances of violence and you sought no medical advice which may have saved his life.
“This was a drunken brawl in which you killed your best and only friend.”
Warner showed no emotion as he was jailed.
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