A MAN has been found guilty of bludgeoning a binman to death with a sledgehammer as he slept in his favourite chair in the work canteen.

Aaron Jenkins, 20, of Devonshire Road, Burnley, admitted hitting Stephen Whitehead over the head with the weapon he found at Pendle Skip Hire.

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Preston Crown Court heard he claimed the attack on his former workmate was not premeditated and his responsibility was diminished by his moderate learning difficulties, which gave him the learning capacity of an eight-year-old.

Three weeks before the murder, the two men had come to blows when Mr Whitehead had called Jenkins lazy as they worked together in the yard.

After a fist fight which left both men requiring hospital treatment, the court heard Jenkins was told not to come back to his casual job at the sorting and recycling plant in Balderstone Close, Burnley.

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The prosecution said on the day of the murder July 25 last year, Jenkins had been drinking with two teenagers.

Mr Whitehead had also been drinking in a number of pubs and had decided to sleep at the yard, something colleagues said was not unusual.

The court heard a boy Jenkins was with said he was considering buying a motorbike and Jenkins said he knew where there was one he could steal.

The boy decided he would not go along, but Jenkins and a 16-year-old girl, who can not be named for legal reasons, carried on to the skip plant.

At the gates, the prosecution said Jenkins told the girl to wait while he climbed over and made his way to the canteen area, where a motorbike was stored on an upstairs mezzanine.

But as he approached the canteen he heard a radio playing and saw Mr Whitehead asleep between two chairs and thought 'payback time', the prosecution said.

Jenkins took the motorbike to the bottom of the canteen steps but realised it would be too heavy to carry over the gates.

The prosecution said he then walked to an office where the sledgehammer was kept and returned to where Mr Whitehead was sleeping, raining down five or six heavy blows to his head.

He then returned to the teenager who was waiting for him by the gates.

She told the court: “He just climbed over the gates and we just walked and he was like, normal at first.

“As soon as we got onto the main road, that’s when he started looking around and being weird and then Aaron told me he thinks he’s killed someone."

The court heard when colleagues arrived at the plant to start work on July 27, Mr Whitehead was found slumped in the chair with severe head injuries.

Jenkins was hanging around the gates when the site opened, claiming to have come to speak to the boss about getting his job back.

But during police interview, Jenkins admitted he killed Mr Whitehead. He claimed diminished responsibility due to having moderate learning difficulties.

Consultant forensic psychiatrist, Dr Lucy Bacon, told the court Jenkins had difficulty in controlling his impulses but prosecutor Francis McEntee argued there had been no altercation between the men when they had been together at the hospital, following the earlier fight.

The teenage girl who waited at the gates also told the court she had provided a false alibi for Jenkins as she was afraid of what he would do if she did not do what he said.

The jury found her guilty of attempting to pervert the course of justice at the end of the week long trial.

Speaking after the hearing, Detective Chief Inspector Pete Simm, who led murder investigation, said: “This was a completely unprovoked and cowardly assault, carried out in such a way that Stephen had no opportunity to defend himself.

"The level of violence used was truly shocking.

“Our thoughts remain with the family and friends of Stephen Whitehead at this difficult time and hopefully this conviction and sentence can go some way to helping them start to re-build their lives.”

Jenkins will be sentenced along with the 16-year- girl, who was convicted of perverting the course of justice, on March 3.