Hells Angels members get 15-year sentence for hammer and baseball bat murder

VANCOUVER – Two members of the Hells Angels have been sentenced to 15 years in prison for the beating death of a man in Kelowna, B.C.

Norman Cocks and Robert Thomas have been sentenced in B.C. Supreme Court for the June 2011 murder of Dain Phillips.

They were charged with second-degree murder but pleaded guilty last week to manslaughter — the first such conviction of full-patch members of the biker gang.

With time served, the men from the Kelowna chapter of the Hells Angels are expected to spend about 12 years behind bars.

Fifty-one-year-old Phillips was beaten with a hammer and a baseball bat when he tried to resolve a dispute between his two sons and some old high school acquaintances.

Cocks and Thomas were among seven people originally charged with the murder and while a charge against one person was later stayed, four others are scheduled to go to trial.

(CKNW, Kelowna Daily Courier)