IT took just over five hours for the jury to reach their verdict - in April last year Damien Lee Hill picked up a machete, and murdered his friend.

Hill, 44, whose address had previously been given as Sowerby Avenue, Barrow, sat still and silent in the dock as the foreman of the jury gave the verdict, his eyes staring forwards, hands resting in his lap.

For the family members of the murdered Guy Hamilton, the sense of relief was palpable, knowing that justice was being served.

Mr Hamilton was killed by a single blow to the neck when he was slashed across the throat with a three-foot-long machete on April 30 last year. He struggled to the house of a neighbour seeking help, but his injury was too severe and he ultimately bled to death.

The family of Mr Hamilton sat with great dignity through a gruelling five-day trial at Preston Crown Court, listening to the distressing and often graphic detail of his death.

After the verdict was given Mr Simon Medland, QC, prosecuting, read out a statement on behalf of Elizabeth Rawlinson, the mother of Mr Hamilton.

She expressed the unimaginable pain her family went through after hearing Mr Hamilton had been killed.

She said: "At 10.30am on May 1 our lives changed forever. The police knocked at the door and we were told that Guy had been killed the previous night. My heart felt like it had been ripped from my chest. I was crying and shouting like a mad woman.

"Since that day my heart has been broken in two and it will never be whole again. Every night before I go to bed I have an image in my head of Guy on the cold road edge with no-one around him who loved him.

"Guy was a son who made me laugh a lot and made me cry sometimes. I was proud to call him my son."

After the death of Mr Hamilton, the community in which he lived rallied to remember the man known as "Ormsgill's finest". Hundreds of pounds were raised in his memory, a source of great comfort for his family.

Mrs Rawlinson's statement continued: "People ask me how I am and I say I'm OK because I don't want to burden them with my problems. When I talk about Guy I have to hold the tears away. I couldn't have coped without the never-ending support of my husband, his brothers and Guy's childhood friend Danny."

Mrs Rawlinson said she will always keep the number of her son stored in her mobile phone, a constant reminder of her love for him.

She said: "I still have his voice mail stored on my phone to hear his voice again. I will never delete his number from my phone."

Honorary Recorder of Preston, Judge Mark Brown said Hill's crime was a drunken murder, lacking any motivation.

He said: "After the killing you told your family there had been a fight and you slit, or slashed his throat. This appears to have been a motiveless, drunken murder.

"The pathologist said the cause of death was a single forceful blow with a machete causing a gaping incised wound to the neck. He told the jury the injury required severe force to inflict."

Judge Brown said Hill had robbed Mr Hamilton of his life, and deprived his family of a loving, devoted son, an action that would never be reversed by a verdict given in court.

He continued: "It is clear from the statement of Elizabeth Rawlinson that the death of Guy Hamilton has had a profound affect on his parents. In that moving personal statement she said her heart was broken. She goes on to say that she will always miss her son very deeply. Human life can never be restored.

"Guy Hamilton was still a relatively young man when he was murdered. He'd been entitled to look forward to many years of life ahead. Tragically, that life was cut short by your violent actions when you slashed his throat with a machete.

"His family have been deprived of the love and compassion he would have given them in the years ahead."

Hill was sentenced to life imprisonment by Judge Brown. He will serve a minimum of 16 years behind bars before parole will be considered.

A statement from Mr Hamilton's family said: "The jury found Hill guilty of murder and we feel the sentence is appropriate. Justice has been done for our son Guy."