Overview

• Manchester Crown Court imposed a life sentence with a 15-year minimum term, from which Ellis’s previous 12 years and six months in custody will be deducted before parole consideration.
• Ellis, then 23, struck Igor Pavlov at least five times with a tree branch in Whitworth Park on September 11, 2012, causing a fractured skull and catastrophic brain injury.
• CCTV, clothing analysis and phone records undermined Ellis’s claim that he merely found the victim and had acted as a Good Samaritan when calling 999.
• Pavlov lived with profound neurodisability requiring round-the-clock care and died in July 2023; the cause of death was recorded as bronchopneumonia, neurodisability and blunt force head injury.
• The CPS reviewed medical records, secured Attorney General consent and relied on Ellis’s prior GBH admission to establish intent, as the judge condemned the repeated head blows as a very vicious assault.