Two religious prison inmates who were “ordered by God” to murder a convicted killer from Stansted Mountfitchet have been handed life sentences.

East Anglian Daily Times: Brett Rogers was found dead in his cell earlier this year. Picture: ARCHANTBrett Rogers was found dead in his cell earlier this year. Picture: ARCHANT (Image: Archant)

Billy White, a Christian, and Gary Lindley, a Muslim, prayed after the pre-planned killing of Brett Rogers earlier this year – an act they believed would “exorcise a demon” from him and “cleanse” him of his crimes.

Rogers was jailed for life tlast year with a minimum term of 32 years for the murder of his mother and her friend.

He was found in his cell at HMP Long Lartin on June 7 this year before a post mortem report said he died as a result of compression to the neck.

Paramedics confirmed his death at 6.24pm and while the wing was in lockdown, Lindley passed a note to a prison officer reading: “I was ordered by the Lord My God to free Brett Rogers. I know you will not see it this way but that is between you and God. I am of sound mind. Please can I speak to the Governor.”

Worcester Crown Court heard this week that White and Lindley – who pleaded guilty to murder at an earlier hearing – had admitted during police interviews that they decided to kill Rogers around a week before his death.

The pair, who worked as support cleaners at the maximum security jail, also said they had tried to “snap” Rogers neck and then suffocated him with a pillow because he did not appear to be dead.

According to his account to police, White then used a blue marker pen to draw yin and yang signs on Rogers’ cheek.

White, 24, was already serving at least 15 years for murdering his partner by stabbing her through the neck as she slept.

He was sentenced in 2016.

Lindley, 42, was serving an indeterminate sentence after being jailed in 2007 for his part in a violent distraction burglary.

Appearing in front of Judge Juckes this week, Lindley was ordered to serve at least 17 and a half years for killing Rogers.

White received a whole life sentence.

In relation to this, the judge said: “This is his second offence of murder.

“This was a determined and premeditated killing of a particularly cruel kind of a man in his own cell by two men who overpowered him.

“They picked on him because of what they had come to believe about him.”