A killer strangled his friend to death after getting angry because he had fallen asleep.
Drunk Trevor Brazier, 48, got so annoyed at Kevin Tridgell, 38, for dozing off that he choked him to death.
The two had gone back to Brazier’s flat on June 1, last year and drank until the early hours the following day.
Brazier, who was pictured crying in his custody suite image, called an ambulance for Mr Tridgell but gave conflicting accounts telling emergency services his pal was unconscious but also that he was drunk and brawling.
Police turned up to the property in Margate, Kent, and found Mr Tridgell drunk and passed out.
Brazier urged them to take Mr Tridgell away – telling them he had to be up for work – but officers refused.
Then at 3.38am he phoned police again and they returned, but said they ‘didn’t have the powers’ to remove Mr Tridgell.
Marc Jacques Burton launches Mortal Kombat collection and we’re obsessed with everythingAn hour later a worried neighbour phoned Kent Police to say they heard Brazier shouting at someone and another person apologising to him.
Brazier made his third call to officers telling them he had killed Mr Tridgell in self-defence after he ‘had been attacked with a knife’.
Mr Tridgell was taken to hospital but could not be saved and died from his injuries the following day.
A jury found Brazier guilty of murdering rough sleeper Mr Tridgell at Maidstone Crown Court in Kent, yesterday.
He is due to be sentenced tomorrow.
Detective Constable Jo Bird, from the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate, said: ‘Our officers had spoken to Brazier several times earlier that night, explaining the right course of action for his friend was to be allowed to sleep until the morning.
‘Mr Tridgell had not shown any signs of causing issues, and in fact had not woken during previous visits to the flat by emergency services.
‘But, fuelled by alcohol, Brazier instead attacked the man he had earlier invited into his home and it had only tragic consequences’.
