THE SISTER of fatal stab victim Lee Butler said killer Lewis Butler had ripped her family apart.

Julie Butler, her brother’s older sibling by 11 months, said they had shared a ‘special bond’ and were more like twins.

She said in a victim personal statement read to Oxford Crown Court by prosecutor Charles Ward-Jackson: "Lewis Brown has ripped our family apart. Our lives will never be the same again.

"Now I feel like there's something missing in my life and a part of me that is gone and can never be recovered.”

READ MORE: Live updates from Lewis Brown's sentencing

The 39-year-old’s death had left a ‘void’ in her life, Ms Butler added.

Lewis Brown remained impassive in the dock as the statement was read aloud.

Repeatedly referring to her brother’s death as ‘murder’, she said that no words could begin to describe the sense of loss they felt about his death.

She said: "Lee had his problems with drugs but he didn't deserve to lose his life because of it. No one does.

"Lee was trying to sort himself out and now he can't. This opportunity has been cruelly taken away from him."

Oxford Mail: Flowers and tributes left at the scene of Lee Butler's death last October Picture: OMFlowers and tributes left at the scene of Lee Butler's death last October Picture: OM

Craig, Mr Butler's younger brother, was the one who Lee 'looked out for'. He had considered 'taking his own life so he can be reunited with Lee'.

The younger sibling had had to identify Lee at the hospital mortuary. "No one should have to go through that to go and see the brother that looked after him lying there."

READ MORE: Judge jails Lewis Brown for 10-and-a-half years

Lee Butler was his mother’s full-time carer. Since his death, her health had suffered and she had had to leave the home they shared in Barton.

His father 'cannot understand how someone could take Lee's life away in the flash of a knife', Julie Butler added.

This morning, Lewis Brown, 20, of Barton Village Road, Oxford, was jailed for 10-and-a-half years for Mr Butler’s manslaughter and possession of the knife that killed the older man.

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