Drink driver guilty of murdering friend.

A DRINK-driver was yesterday found guilty of murdering a friend because he would not keep quiet while they were hiding from the police.

Donald Storm, 37, had been drinking when he crashed his Vauxhall Corsa into a ditch on a quiet country road near the Harperley Hotel in Stanley, County Durham, onJanuary 30.

And after he and passenger Lyndsay Kennedy, 40, failed to free the car, the pair sheltered in undergrowth when police arrived at the scene at about 10.30pm.

But when Mr Kennedy would not keep quiet and risked speaking to the officers, Storm attacked him, then dragged him behind a tree and left the father-of-two to die alone in freezing temperatures.

Newcastle Crown Court heard how the killer returned to the site the next day and tried to persuade a taxi driver to take the body back to Storm's home in nearby Catchgate but the cabbie refused and alerted the emergency services. Storm, 37, of York Street, Catchgate, County Durham, denied murder but was found guilty by a jury yesterday which delivered a unanimous verdict after two hours' deliberation.

Prosecutor Toby Hedworth QC told the court: "He punched him then having knocked him to the ground, he kicked and stamped on him to make him quiet.

"Then, he dragged his gravely injured body some distance to a position behind a tree or bush to avoid being discovered by the police.

"Having inflicted those injuries upon his friend, Storm then failed to raise the alarm, either with the police attending the scene or those in the hotel. He simply left his friend on the desperately cold night lying there."

A post-mortem examination revealed injuries to Mr Kennedy's head, neck and torso as well as broken ribs. A serious injury to the head was the cause of death. Storm will be sentenced today.