Cannabis farm worker 'burnt and slashed' by terror gang (From Warrington Guardian)

Cannabis farm worker 'burnt and slashed' by terror gang

A WORKER for murdered Nantwich market trader Brian Waters told Chester Crown Court how he too thought he was going to be killed.

Giving evidence in the trial of murder suspect Otis Lee Matthews last week, Suleman Razak explained how he was beaten senseless before Mr Waters was tortured to death.

Matthews, aged 26, from Stretford, Trafford, denies his part in the murder of father-of-two Brian Waters, pictured above, and conspiring to cause grievous bodily harm to him and Mr Razak.

Mr Waters aged 44, of Mainwaring Close, Stapeley, was killed by a gang in a makeshift torture chamber at Burnt House Farm on June 19 last year, the court has heard.

It is claimed by the prosecution that his murder was in revenge for a £20,000 drug debt he owed.

Mr Razak, aged 21, was employed to water the cannabis plants Mr Waters grew at the farm in Tabley, Knutsford.

When Mr Razak arrived that day to carry out his watering duties, he was brutally attacked, tied upside down from a beam by his ankles and put in a barrel of water.

He suffered horrendous injuries, including extensive burns, staple wounds to his head and neck and his ear was slashed with a knife.

Mr Razak said: "I was then tied to a chair and I kept drifting in and out of consciousness and I was scared. I thought I was going to die.

"Brian was then pushed into the barn and his clothing was dirty and his shirt was already covered in blood.

"He was on the ground and they were hitting him with garden canes.

"They tied him up by his ankles and suspended him upside down from the beam where I had been tied from.

"He was still being beaten with the garden canes and a lump of wood and they lit a plastic bag and dripped it over him.

"They kept asking him where the money was kept in his house and then they dragged him into another room.

"I try to forget what happened but I remember the police arriving and a door being opened and seeing Brian lying on the ground.

"He was just lying on his front, not moving."

The trial continues.