The brothers’ mother told the court: ‘My whole life has been shattered into pieces and no one can fix it for me. I struggle to understand how it came to this’
Shocking footage has been released showing the moment a man was stabbed to death through a car window by his own brother while the middle sibling filmed it.
Thomas Rogers was a passenger in a Vauxhall Astra when he was knifed in the heart through an open window in a frenzied 30-second attack in broad daylight.
Emergency services rushed to the scene in Birmingham and found Thomas collapsed in the street on Mill Pool Way, Edgbaston, after he was set upon at 4.55pm on August 22 last year. The 26-year-old later died in hospital.
His brothers David Rogers, 33, and Samuel Rogers, 30, were convicted of his murder at Birmingham Crown Court last month.
Jurors heard the pair carried out the attack following a bitter family argument over the treatment of their mother, Carol Rogers, who Thomas was living with at the time.
In the hours before the killing, the oldest sibling, David, sent Thomas messages threatening to kill him.
One said: “Bro come on I’ve come from Newcastle to get ya work that one out how can I be scared” while another said, “Your a waste man, I’m gunna kill you right.”
Other text messages read: “250 miles to get ya so just remember what I’ve put into this to get ya” while a fourth said: “Don’t worry I’ll have ya but the end of the day.”
Thomas was “chased, hunted down and stabbed to death” when the siblings spotted him travelling along Bristol Road in Birmingham.
The siblings boxed the car in and jumped out of their Ford KA armed with knives while a third man was seen wielding a sledgehammer.
Samuel filmed his brother going over to the Astra and brutally stabbing Thomas through the passenger window.
Shocking CCTV footage captured the moment the pair lunged into the vehicle with the blades while an accomplice smashed the windscreen with the sledgehammer.
David fled to a hotel in Northumbria where officers found an apparent suicide note apologising for what he had done to his “baby brother”.
He was later found guilty of murder while Samuel was cleared of murder but convicted of manslaughter. They both also previously pleaded guilty to possession of a knife.
David was on Thursday sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum term of 18 years. Samuel was jailed for nine years.
Two other men, Ryan Hurt, 22, and Macauley Welby, 22, were both cleared of murder.
In an emotional victim impact statement read in court, the brother’s mother told how she had “lost all three sons”.
“I wish I could turn the clock back but I can’t,” Rogers said.
“In the blink of an eye, I have lost all three of my sons.
“My whole life has been shattered into pieces and no one can fix it for me. I struggle to understand how it came to this.”
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Sentencing, Judge Melbourne Inman QC said: “You are brothers and the victim was your younger brother – he was only 26-years-old and had his life ahead of him.
“It has had a devastating effect on your mother. It is difficult to understand the impact when her son is killed – and knowing he lost his life at the hands of her other two sons.”
Detective Inspector Stuart Mobberley, from West Midlands Police, said afterwards: “It took just 30 seconds and one single knife wound to kill Thomas.
“And now two people will spend years in prison for their part in this crime.
“When we say there are no winners in knife crime, this could not be truer in case.
“A mother has lost not just one, but three sons as a result of this heinous crime.”
