A 15-year-old boy who murdered his mother with a hammer and set her body on fire in Nottinghamshire has been detained for a minimum of 16 years.
Daniel Bartlam had denied murder but admitted the manslaughter of his mother, Jacqueline Bartlam, following a row in the middle of the night.
Nottingham Crown Court was told she had been beaten seven times with a claw hammer, fracturing her face and skull.
A soap opera murder plot and violent TV clips were found on Daniel’s computer.
Reporting restrictions preventing identification of the boy were lifted by the court following his sentencing.
Coronation Street
Jacqueline Bartlam, 47, was discovered by fire crews at her home on Georgia Drive, Redhill, Nottinghamshire, in the early hours of 25 April 2011.
After being beaten, her body was then padded with paper, covered in petrol and set on fire, the court heard.
Daniel, who was 14 at the time of the killing, told police an intruder had killed his mother but detectives found a written “soap opera plot” on his computer in which he fantasised about his character carrying out the killing.
Jacqueline Bartlam was struck with a claw hammer seven timesThe court heard he had been particularly interested in a Coronation Street storyline involving the character John Stape.
In the soap, Stape had murdered a woman with a hammer and then left her body in the wreckage of a tram crash.
It was also revealed Daniel had been watching violent horror films since he was eight and had viewed the film Saw hours before killing his mother.
The teenager claimed he had been provoked into violence when his mother called him “a freak” during their argument.
He was found guilty of murder at Nottingham Crown Court on 9 February.
The jury heard authorities raised concerns about the boy’s behaviour in the months before the attack.
He told a counsellor voices were telling him to hurt people and that he had had visions of killing people, the court was told.
However, several experts had concluded he was not mentally ill and he did not pose a risk.