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Craig Stanton, 43, and Alexander Mackay, 47, broke into Saleem Butt’s house in Batley looking for cash for drugs and subjected the “lonely” and “isolated” householder to a “dreadful” series of attacks, Judge Rodney Jameson QC told Leeds Crown Court.

The judge said Mr Butt was gagged and tied up in such a way that, if he struggled, a rope would tighten round his neck.

He was tied at the wrists and had a pair of shorts stuffed in his mouth before suffering multiple blows which could have been from punches, slaps, kicks or some kind of weapon.

Career criminals Craig Stanton (left) and Alexander Mackay have been jailed for life at Leeds Crown Court (Image: WYP)

Judge Jameson said Mr Butt eventually died from asphyxia after a knife and a screwdriver were used to torture him to get information about his property and cash.

He said it was not known whether Mr Butt died before Stanton and Mackay left the house on Hyrstlands Road or whether the pair left him to die still restrained and gagged.

Judge Jameson said: “If he was alive, he was plainly incapable of calling for help.”

The judge said it was clear from forensic evidence that Mr Butt was alive for at least 30 minutes after the attacks on him began.

Saleem Butt, 61, was murdered in his own home in Batley (Image: WYP)

“The scientific and pathological evidence paints a dreadful picture of events,” Judge Jameson said.

The judge described how Stanton and Mackay both have long criminal records and targeted Mr Butt, who he described as “a lonely and, in some respects, isolated man”.

He said they drank alcohol and probably smoked crack cocaine before getting into the house through a window in April and staying in the property for almost exactly an hour.

The judge said: “Neither of you have ever told the truth about what happened during that hour.”

On Monday, Judge Jameson jailed both defendants for life, ordering Stanton, of Harold Wilson Court, Huddersfield, to be detained for at least 25 years before he is considered for release and Mackay, of School Crescent, Dewsbury Moor, to be held for a minimum of 23 years.

Both men were found guilty of murder following a trial earlier this year.

In a victim personal statement read to the court, one of Mr Butt’s sons described the pain of imagining the ordeal his father went through.

He said neither of the defendants have shown “an ounce of remorse”.

Two jailed for life for murder of 61-year-old man tortured for cash in his Batley home