A father who pressured his 14-year-old son into taking the blame for a murder he had committed has been jailed.
Matthew Moseley, 50, shot Lee Holt in the chest when he tried to get into his home last October.
After he fired the shotgun, Moseley handed it to his son, saying: “Tell them you’ve done it.”
Moseley, who had denied murder, was given a life sentence at Preston Crown Court and ordered to serve at least 26 years in jail.
Jurors heard Mr Holt had gone to confront Moseley at his home in Oswaldtwistle, near Accrington, amid a long-running dispute between the men’s children.
Moseley opened his front door and fired a Beretta semi-automatic shotgun at Mr Holt, the jury was told.
His son made a fake confession and Moseley stayed silent as the teenager was arrested and led away in handcuffs.
Despite the boy changing his account, Moseley maintained his innocence and said he had knocked the gun from his son’s hands.
In a covert recording of a prison van conversation, Moseley said to his son: “You are a minor. You can’t go to any jail.
“Self-defence for you and you didn’t know what you were doing. Me, different ball game. And that is the way we have got to go with this.”
Passing sentence, Mr Justice Simon Bryan told Moseley there was “no possible justification” for his actions, nor any suggestion he acted in self-defence.
“How any father could do that to their son is difficult enough to comprehend but what is truly incomprehensible is the cynical way in which you sought to manipulate, and pressurise, your son into accepting responsibility for the shooting and death of Lee Holt.
“You allowed your son to be arrested and questioned on suspicion of murder when all along you knew you had shot [him].
“Your continual denial of guilt resulted in him having to give evidence against his own father and members of Lee Holt’s family having to relive the terrible events of the night in question.”
Richard Littler, defending, said his client was a hard-working family man who reacted in a “bizarre fashion” in the heat of the moment when there was “kicking, banging and threats” made at his front door.
Det Ch Insp Jill Johnston from Lancashire Police said Moseley’s sentence was “nothing less than he deserves”.
There were “no winners” in the case, she said, as the Holt family “lost a dearly loved father, son, partner, brother and uncle”, while Moseley’s son must “try and build a life for himself knowing his dad is in prison after trying to blame him”.
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