Leon Karl Clifford

The offence

What the court heard

He found guilty of murder in Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, on 28 August 2019. He had pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Sentencing Remarks 1. It falls to me now to sentence you in the light of the jury's unanimous verdicts at the conclusion of a ten-week trial which started in January this year and ended just under two weeks ago. 2. Leon Clifford, Leon Symons, Peter McCarthy and Brandon Liversidge, you have each been convicted of murder; Ryan Palmer, Lewis Evans and Raymond Thompson, you have each been found guilty of manslaughter. 3. The jury have, therefore, found you each responsible, albeit to different degrees, for the death of Harry Baker, a 17-year old who leaves behind a family whose upset at his death is as understandable as it is profound. 4. His mother and father have both explained how they feel in moving and eloquent victim impact statements. They each make sad reading. Mrs Baker has, indeed, today read her statement, showing great courage and dignity in doing so. It is clear that family members' lives have changed forever. I should record that throughout the trial Harry Baker's parents have attended. It must have been immensely distressing for them - made worse by having to attend two trials given that the first had to be abandoned in March last year due to COVID-19. 5. Emma Baker very frankly acknowledges that her son Harry "somehow got sucked into" a drug dealing lifestyle. It is clear that that, indeed, was the case for that is why Harry was in Barry. Like you Leon Symons and Brandon Liversidge and you also Leon Clifford, he was a drug dealer along with his friend Louis Johnson. That is why he had come to Barry from Cardiff: to supply drugs to the apparently very many drug users who live in Barry. 6. The fact that Harry Baker was involved in drug dealing does not, however, remotely justify what happened to him that night. Nor does the fact that, as a drug dealer, he was carrying at least one knife. He did not deserve to die and his death is as tragic and unnecessary as that of anybody who is murdered. I make that abundantly clear. 7. The circumstances need not be rehearsed in any particular detail. They are now very well known. Suffice to say that, consistent with what the jury must plainly have concluded given the verdicts which they reached, there was an ambush at the top of Little Moors Hill just after midnight on 28 August 2019. This involved you Leon Symons, Leon Clifford, Brandon Liversidge and Raymond Thompson alighting from Lewis…

Around this case

• Newport (IOW) Crown Court
• Prosecuted by CPS Cymru-Wales
• Investigated by South Wales Police