ONE Huddersfield has been jailed for life and a second awaits sentence for plotting to rob and kill international pop star Joss Stone.

Kevin Liverpool, 35 , who grew up in Dalton and Fartown, was told by a judge at Exeter Crown Court that he would have to serve a minimum term of imprisonment of 10 years and eight months before he could be considered for parole.

Click below to see pictures from the trial.

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Liverpool and co-accused Junior Bradshaw, 32, who was brought up in Paddock, harboured deep hatred for the soul singer.

The defendants, who both grew up in Huddersfield but were sharing a flat in St Stephen’s Close, Longsight, Manchester, were convicted by a jury of conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to rob after just four hours’ deliberations following a three-week trial.

The prosecution had alleged they planned to attack Stone at her home at Ashill, mid-Devon.

They say notes written by Liverpool show they wanted to behead her using a Samurai sword because of her links to the royal family, including singing at charity events run by Princes William and Harry and attending the wedding of William and Kate Middleton.

They say the pair had scouted her home and were on their way to attack her armed with the sword, three knives, two hammers, masks, gloves and a hosepipe when they were arrested in their Fiat Punto in Cullompton in June 2011.

Judge Francis Gilbert QC, The Recorder of Exeter, told Liverpool: “You intended to rob her and kill her and dump her body in the river, according to your words, and then leave the country with your accomplice Junior Bradshaw.”

Sentencing on Bradshaw was adjourned until a later date.

The court had heard he has severe mental health problems.

The judge told Liverpool: “It is clear from your text messages on your phone that from as early as November 2010 you had been planning to rob someone from what you hoped would be in excess of £1m.

“By January 2011 you wanted a semi-automatic handgun and you had identified Joss Stone as the target.

“You had no reason to target her except that she was a wealthy young woman as she was a successful singer.

“You assumed as she was a friend of the royal family she would be able to give you money of that sort of amount.

“She was a random target that you chose because she was a popular singer who you thought was wealthy.”

The judge said that Liverpool had recruited Bradshaw into the scheme.

“It may have been, to use the colloquial, ‘a crazy scheme from a crazy person and must be likely to fail’ but when you decided to travel from Manchester to Devon you intended to carry it out,” the judge said.

He also branded Liverpool as “dangerous” and said the public needed protection from people like him.

“Life imprisonment is what it says,” the judge told Liverpool.

“It is an indefinite sentence and you will not be released before it is considered safe for you to be released.”

The judge said he was considering passing a hybrid sentence on Bradshaw, meaning he would receive a custodial sentence but would most likely serve it in a secure psychiatric unit.

In a statement after the verdicts, Stone said: “I'd like to thank everyone for all their support and kind wishes.

“I am relieved the trial is now over and that these men are no longer in a position to cause harm to anyone.”

Outside court, her mother Wendy Joseph, who attended the trial each day, echoed her daughter’s sentiments.

She said: “Joss would like to thank everybody for their support and all of their good wishes.

“Joss and myself and indeed our whole family are relieved the trial is now over and these men are no longer in a position to cause harm to anyone.”

Supt Steve Parker, who led the investigation, welcomed the convictions.

“This has been a long and difficult investigation,” he said.

“While on the face of it the circumstances speak for themselves, the inquiry has involved some complex areas of law and presented significant challenges to the investigation team.

“I have no doubt that Liverpool and Bradshaw were intending to harm Miss Stone and it was through the alertness of the public and good police work that we were able to bring this incident to a successful conclusion.

“I would like to thank those members of the public who recognised the suspicious behaviour of Liverpool and Bradshaw and acted positively by calling the police, along with those who have supported the investigation by providing witness statements.”

WHEN the Joss Stone abduction plot began to unravel, no-one was more surprised than the West Yorkshire families of bungling would-be kidnappers Junior Bradshaw and Kevin Liverpool.

Both men came from respectable backgrounds and hardworking families in Huddersfield, who knew nothing about what had happened until they read about it in the Examiner.

The pair were born and bred in Huddersfield and have family in Huddersfield, Leeds, and Batley.

Liverpool grew up with his brother David in Greenside Crescent, Waterloo, after parents Angeline and Cosmos had arrived in England from the small Caribbean island of Curaçao.

His mother Angeline was working hard as a nurse to support her young family while Cosmos found work with local engineering firm Hopkinson’s.

Both brothers attended All Saint’s High School.

Their parents later separated and Angeline, now 68, decided to return to the West Indies while Mr Liverpool, now 67, opted to remain in Huddersfield where he still lives.

Kevin later moved to Bradford Road, Fartown, Huddersfield, where Junior Bradshaw became a regular visitor.

No-one really knows why the two men began their ill-fated friendship which was to continue on the other side of the Pennines after both ended up in Manchester where they shared a house.

According to family sources, the pair made an unlikely couple of kidnappers.

Junior had passed his driving test as a teenager but according to relatives had never driven since or even owned a car.

He was the only son of Anderson Bradshaw, who lost an eye while working as a pub doorman, and June Abbott, a civil servant.

The couple separated when Junior was very young. His father, now 51, moved to Leeds and was said by relatives to have had little contact with his son growing up.

His mother June Abbot, also 51, a civil servant, is well known in Huddersfield where she lives with her new husband.

Junior attended Paddock Junior School, Royds Hall High School in Huddersfield and later Fartown High School – but was excluded for bad behaviour.

He was also said by his family to have been convicted of indecent exposure after performing a sex act in a public place.

He got his own place at Clare Hill, Huddersfield, and was a regular at a local gym, where he worked out. He was also keen on football and basketball.

But he had no luck when it came to finding work. After leaving school he was apprenticed at Henderson’s Bed Centre in the town’s Packhorse Shopping Centre but that job did not last and he seemed unable to find another one.

Relatives supported him by giving him part time work in one of the family businesses: car valeting.

Junior also became a father. But his girlfriend later left him, taking the boy with her to London where she has remained ever since.

The family say Junior has never seen the boy, who is now 13, and because of his memory problems may now be even unaware of the lad’s existence.

At first, the family thought Junior was just “laid back”. But gradually the extent of his mental problems became clear.

Outside the family circle he had difficulty coping. At one point, he forgot to sign on and ended up having all his benefits stopped. At other times, he seemed in a world of his own.

A spokesman for Junior’s family said the trial should have stopped as soon as his mental problems were diagnosed.

“He is not well mentally. Once they realised that he should have been hospitalised and not put on trial until he was better,” he added.

“I can’t understand after they were stopped by police for having no insurance that they were then allowed to carry on into the village and get caught. It just doesn’t make any sense.

“You can’t call it a plan because there was no plan. They didn’t even get to where they were supposed to be going.”

Kevin Liverpool’s uncle Reuben McTair said Mrs Liverpool had returned to the West Indies and he did not want to comment.

“I haven’t seen Kevin for a long time and all I know is what I have read in the papers. It would be a terrible thing for any family,” he added.

SINGER Joss Stone is one of Britain’s best music stars.

She has won a host of awards in her relatively short career and is feted across the world.

All that’s a far cry from her first public performance – on stage at the Uffculme Comprehensive School in Devon, with a cover version of Jackie Wilson's 1957 song Reet Petite.

Stone, pictured, was born Jocelyn Eve Stoker in April 1987 in Dover, Kent, but moved to Devon with her family, where her father ran a fruit and nut business.

She spent her teenage years in Ashill, a small village near Cullompton in Devon and was the third of four children born to Wendy and Richard Stoker. It was in 2001, at the age of 13, that she had her big break.

She auditioned for the BBC Television talent show Star for a Night in London singing Aretha Franklin's 1968 Goffin-King hit (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman and Whitney Houston's 1998 It's Not Right But It's Okay.

After passing her audition, she sang Donna Summer's 1979 hit On the Radio for the broadcast, and eventually won the contest.

She rose to fame in late 2003 with her multi-platinum debut album, The Soul Sessions, which made the 2004 Mercury Prize shortlist.

Her second album, the equally multi-platinum Mind Body & Soul, topped the UK Albums Chart for one week and spawned the top 10 hit You Had Me, Stone’s most successful single on the UK Singles Chart to date.

Since then she has gone on to win countless awards, made her TV and film debuts and continued to work with many of the world’s biggest music stars.

In 2012, her fortune was estimated to be £10m but she never forgot her roots.

She bought a home in an idyllic part of Devon and enjoys the country lifestyle – telling the kidnap trial that she rarely locked her doors.