A teenage drug addict who murdered his 91-year-old grandfather and stole his £300 pension was jailed for life today.
Stephen Lang broke Thomas Lang's neck and left him dying on the floor after letting himself into his flat in the middle of the night.
Frail Thomas lay critically injured while Lang grabbed his pension money to feed his £140-a-day drug habit.
Thomas, who walked with the aid of a trolley, was able to summon help via a lifeline alarm he kept around his neck.
He told police his grandson had attacked him but his condition quickly deteriorated and he died three days later in hospital.
Thomas also told police he would have given his grandson the money - if he had simply asked him.
Lang was found guilty at a previous hearing and jailed for life today - on what would have been Thomas' 92nd birthday.
The Honourable Mr Justice Hamblen, sentencing at Truro Crown Court, told Lang, now 20, he would serve a minimum of 15 years for killing his grandfather on April 17 last year.
He said: "You lost your temper and in a drunken, drug-fuelled rage you attacked him. He was a frail old man - you are a well-built man.
"Your grandfather was particularly vulnerable due to his ill health and disability. You knew well what had happened and you intended what you did.
"You left him lying, helpless on the floor and you didn't call for help. You have deprived him of his life and your family of its head."
Lang, then aged 19, was high on drink and drugs when he entered his grandfather's sheltered housing flat in Launceston.
He grabbed him and threw him to the ground, breaking his neck in the process, before stealing a wallet hidden under the pensioner's pillow.
Mr Lang alerted carers using his alarm and his son Keith - who is Stephen Lang's uncle - rushed to his father's aid.
He discovered the flat door slightly ajar, signs of a disturbance with the coffee table knocked over and his elderly father slumped on the floor of the lounge.
The pensioner asked his son to call the police and then told an operator: "My grandson came in, I don't know for what reason. He came in and attacked me.
"He was twisting my neck and that. I am lying on the ground now and I just can't move."
Mr Lang told the operator there was £300 of his pension money stuffed inside the stolen wallet and added: "I would have given him some if he'd asked."
The pensioner died three days later in hospital from pneumonia - believed to have been caused by his injuries.
Lang, of Launceston, Cornwall, had a serious drug habit and had been to three pubs before hailing a taxi to his grandfather's home.
He accepted he had killed his grandfather by pleading guilty to manslaughter, claiming he pushed the pensioner's walking trolley causing him to fall to the ground.
But his plea was rejected and jurors later agreed with prosecutors that the force needed to break Mr Lang's neck was too "severe" to be accidental - and convicted him of murder.
Speaking outside court, Wendy Long, Thomas Lang's oldest grandchild, said: "He was a loving dad and granddad and the fact that he was killed by his grandchild has devastated the family.
"This has split the family right down the middle and we are never going to get over what has happened.
"If this had not happened, he would have been celebrating his 92nd birthday."
Detective Inspector Stuart Ellis of Devon and Cornwall Police, added: "This was a terrible crime committed on a defenceless 91-year-old man by his grandson.
"The crime is made all the more tragic as Stephen Lang appeared to have a close relationship with his grandfather and the incident has had a devastating effect on the whole of the family.
"I cannot begin to understand Stephen Lang's motivation for this crime, but the fact that he could inflict these injuries on his own grandfather is truly shocking."
