The leader of a gang who battered a Sussex church organist to death has been jailed for life.

John Smith, who played the organ at a church in St Leonards, hung halfway out of his own Jaguar, urging motorists to take down the registration number and call the police as he was pulled back into the car by kidnappers.

Mr Smith, 72, was then beaten, handcuffed and suffocated, and his body stuffed into a sleeping bag. He was found dead in a cupboard two days later, the Old Bailey heard.

Mark Ellison, prosecuting, said Mr Smith was worth more than £135,000 and Adrian Pugh, 37, murdered him for his money.

Pugh was jailed for life earlier this month but his sentencing could not be reported until yesterday for legal reasons.

An order under the Contempt of Court Act was lifted after a 16-year-old, who was due to stand trial in relation to the murder, pleaded guilty to kidnap and false imprisonment.

The Crown offered no evidence against the teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, in relation to the murder charge.

On November 9 a jury convicted Pugh of murder, false imprisonment and kidnap.

Another man, Robert Holden, 20, was cleared of the murder but found guilty of false imprisonment.

A third man, Daniel Matthews, 40, was cleared of murder and false imprisonment.

Pugh, of no fixed address, Holden of Islington, London, and Matthews, also of Islington, all denied the charges.

Holden and the 16-year-old will now be sentenced in January.

After the killing, Pugh helped himself to Mr Smith's cash and used the Jaguar as if it was his own, the jury was told.

Mr Ellison said Mr Smith was seen putting up a desperate struggle in the car on December 6 last year.

He told the court: "Two motorists saw an elderly man pulling himself out the rear passenger window of a Jaguar. The elderly man was desperately trying to attract attention.

"He was shouting at the other motorists to take down the registration number and to call the police."

On the day before the incident, Pugh had asked a friend to do a 'tie up and baby-sitting job' for him for £10,000.

The associate refused but Holden and the 16-year-old agreed to help, the court was told.

According to Mr Ellison, Pugh was driving the car when he was seen on the M25 with his two sidekicks.

After the motorway incident, police began the hunt for Mr Smith who was missing from his home in St Leonards.

He was later seen at the Iceland store in Islington where he, together with Pugh and another man, attempted to buy a fridge using his credit card.

Either as a ploy, or because he was so nervous, Mr Smith was unable to provide a signature, and the three left the shop without the card or fridge. It was the last time Mr Smith was seen alive.

Mr Ellison said: "He was then kept against his will, effectively a prisoner in 18 Halliday House, Islington."

Two days later the police smashed down the door of the flat, which was rented by Matthews.

The officers demanded to know where Mr Smith was and Pugh said: "He's in the cupboard."

Mr Ellison said: "They found his body crudely bent in a sleeping bag. Before he died he had been badly beaten. He bore the marks of handcuffs on his wrists. He had been killed through suffocation.

"The defendants had been helping themselves to his money and using his property."

Pugh had drawn a £2,000 cheque on Mr Smith's account and put it into his own bank account and the victim's credit card had also been used.

He was jailed for life for murder and two ten-year concurrent sentences on the charges of kidnapping and false imprisonment.

Judge Peter Beaumont QC told him: "You, in my judgment, are a man driven by greed. The obsession of seeing how much of John Smith's money you could lay your hands on drove you to kidnap him and keep him a prisoner.

"Whatever he had done to you in the past, he did not deserve to die in the way he did."