MURDERER Jack Hummerstone has been sentenced to life in prison for killing musician Thomas Brittain at a Colchester flat.

Thomas Brittain, 26, was stabbed to death at Charles House in Parkside Quarter, Colchester, on March 9.

During a trial, Jack Hummerstone, 18, of Clerkenwell, in London, claimed he did not kill aspiring rapper Thomas Brittain and blamed his co-accused, Andre Vella.

A jury at Chelmsford Crown Court did not believe him and he was convicted of murder last month.

Today, he was told he would spend a minimum of 26 years in jail.

Andre Vella, 19, from Kirby Cross, was cleared on the murder charge and wounding but was convicted of aggravated burglary.

He was sentenced to ten years in prison.

At the time of the attack, Mr Brittain was staying with his friend Matthew Purves, his partner Zoe Lewis, and their three young children in their third-floor flat.

Mr Brittain – known as Twister – was asleep on a sofa when two men dressed in black and masked burst into the flat.

Mr Purves, Miss Lewis and their three children, all aged under five, got away from the men by going to another room in the flat and blocking the door shut.

Hummerstone and Vella told the jury they were looking for drugs, but the botched burglary ended with Mr Brittain receiving a stab wound that punctured one of his lungs.

The trial heard the fatal injury was one of nine wounds, inflicted with a large kitchen knife.