£13,000 - the price of a man's life

What price a life? For loner Colin Francis the price on his head was a paltry £13,000.

Not that the 46-year-old knew this when he welcomed lodgers Charles Nicholls and Michael Gould into his Basildon home.

He had no idea just what danger his life was in as soon as the devious pair stepped into his home and his life.

A month later Colin Francis was dead - battered, strangled and dumped in the boot of his own car, his jaw broken, his ear torn half off and his head covered in wounds from a savage beating.

His was a callous, needless death motivated by the greed of two men he hardly knew.

Two men who were prepared to kill in cold blood and bury the corpse in the countryside.

Colin Francis was a quiet man. He had held down a factory job in Barking for a number of years which had helped him get a mortgage for his three-bedroom house in Cleveland Road. He had bought it for £50,000 - a price he considered a bargain.

He was also a simple man - something which would have been more than apparent to his two lodgers.

At the age of 15 he left school barely able to read and write. Although this had improved over the years he still struggled and would ask for help.

His sister Margaret Jordan told the trial her brother was not a sophisticated man.

She said: "My brother was a bit slow. A lot of people would have said he was simple."

The court heard that Mr Francis often struggled to pay his mortgage and was registered with the Basildon Resource Centre as a private landlord.

It was this centre which was to direct his killers to him.

Nicholls, 56, and Gould, 35, were both regular visitors to the resource centre in The Gore. They had gone there to find housing after moving out of the Palace Hotel in Southend last October following a fire.

Soon after the pair moved into Cleveland Road, they starting plotting to defraud Francis.

Nicholls made phone calls to banks claiming to be Francis and saying he wanted to re-mortgage the house. Their plan was to secure a £13,000 loan and steal it.

They also plotted to kill Francis. But when neighbours spotted the two lodgers tending a fire in the back garden of Cleveland Road, they had no idea that the pair were actually burning the bed and mattress Francis had been killed on.

It was bonfire night November 5, 1998 - the only night of the year such a fire wouldn't raise suspicion.

Francis's bloody corpse was sheathed in a floral pillowcase and bound with a sheet, before being dragged into the garage, and later into his car boot.

Grim find - officers found the body in a car boot outside the Barge Inn, Battlesbridge

(Left) Storage - the garages where the body was kept before it was bundled it into the car boot

(Below right) Scene - the house where Colin Francis was murdered

Killer's boast to inmates

Killer Michael Gould boasted to inmates at Chelmsford Prison how he was in for "killing a paedophile".

He had found out from newspaper cuttings that landlord Colin Francis had previous convictions for sexual offences against young boys.

Gould believed that telling fellow inmates would win him some status as he waited for the trial.

Fellow inmate Steven Cook told the trial that Gould seemed very proud of what he said he had done and showed no signs of regret or remorse.

Just days after Francis's body was found in the boot of a car parked at the Barge pub, Battlesbridge, it was revealed that he was a known paedophile.

Detectives investigating the murder case found a hoard of photographs of young boys in sports kit and women in sexual poses during a raid at Francis's house in Cleveland Road, Basildon.

The 46-year-old landlord was convicted of two indecent assaults on boys aged eight and 11, in November 1998, after pleading guilty at Basil don Crown Court.

Francis admitted indecently grabbing the eight-year-old during a game of football and touching the 11-year-old on the bottom and inner thigh as well as kissing him during a trip to an Arsenal football match.

'Brains' behind scam

Self-confessed conman Charles Nicholls was born in Plymouth in 1942.

Detectives say he was the 'brains' behind the mortgage scam to con Colin Francis out of the house he loved.

Nicholls married and served in the Army for 24 years before leaving and embarking on a life of dishonesty and deception.

The court heard he was a "prolific" and "practised liar" who often used the name Robert Jones.

He became something of a self-taught expert on mortgages and would make money by charging commission for his advice.

Nicholls led a nomadic lifestyle, moving frequently, and leaving debts behind him.

It was an unpaid debt of £100 for five days' bed and breakfast in Battlesbridge which led to his arrest.

Violent history

Gould was no angel. He had a previous conviction for kidnap, burglary and assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

In April 1995, Gould, who was then living in Southend, decided to take the law into his own hands when his 16-year-old girlfriend claimed a neighbour had sexually harassed her.

Gould and a friend drove the victim to Little Wheatleys, Rayleigh, where they left him stranded and naked while they drove home to burgle his flat.

Later in the trial Gould also admitted he was lying to police and his doctor saying his mother had just died when she hadn't.

How evil tenants plotted to kill

Nicholls was the brains behind the mortgage scam and Gould the brawn.

This is the view of detectives who investigated the grisly murder.

They believe the cold-blooded pair worked together to plan and execute landlord Colin Francis's death.

Det Supt Steve Reynolds of Essex Police, said: "This was a joint enterprise.

"It was all part of a plan to con Mr Francis out of his house.

"I believe they always planned to kill him - just not at that time. It happened then because Gould's temper got the better of him."

Things came to a head when Mr Francis became suspicious that something was going on.

He became aware that Nicholls had been intercepting the postman, and when Mr Francis called a loan company to make a routine inquiry, he was told he had called a couple of days earlier to inquire about a settlement figure. He knew this wasn't the case.

Supt Reynolds said: "Mr Francis was not the brightest of men, but Nicholls and Gould were being so blatant and indiscreet he couldn't help but notice they were up to something."

Police had to move swiftly after the arrest of Nicholls and Gould on November 6.

They knew they only had a certain amount of time before they would have to release the pair from custody.

But for some time they were confused about a motive.

Supt Reynolds said: "We knew Francis had a history of paedophilia and did wonder if this was our motive.

"It took a while to get to the fact that they were only after cash and the house."

Mr Francis had suffered so many facial fractures in the vicious beating that he was formally identified through forensic inquiries.

Supt Reynolds said: "It is only the fact that Mr Francis was so tiny that he was able to fit into the boot.

"I believe the pair planned to bury him in a shallow grave in the Battlesbridge area. They simply went into the Barge pub for Dutch courage and to wait for darkness."

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