'Dangerous' Sheffield killer said to feel 'remorse' for neighbour's death smirked as he left court

Lee Phillips, aged 45, was found seriously injured after being attacked outside his home on South Road in the High Green area of Sheffield, just after 1am on Saturday, January 30, 2021. Despite the best efforts of medics, he died a short time later.

Jurors found his neighbour, William Parr, guilty of manslaughter, relating to the fatal attack upon Mr Phillips, at the conclusion of a Sheffield Crown Court trial in February 2023.

Sending 27-year-old Parr to begin a nine-year custodial sentence today, The Recorder of Sheffield, Judge Jeremy Richardson KC, described Parr as a ‘dangerous offender’ who, when ‘slighted,’ reacts by ‘punching and punching hard’.

“You behaved in the way you normally do – you punched out – which is exactly what you did that night,” Judge Richardson said of Parr, who trained as a boxer during his adolescence.

Summarising the moments leading up to the fatal attack, which cost Mr Phillips his life, Judge Richardson said: “There was an encounter in the passage way. On one side there was Lee Phillips, the deceased, on the other there was you. Undoubtedly, shortly after that encounter erupted the deceased died.”

Explaining the background to Mr Phillip choosing to ‘remonstrate’ with Parr, previously of South Road, High Green, on the night of the fatal attack, Judge Richardson said it was borne out of the ‘anti-social behaviour coming out of’ Parr’s home, which included the setting of fires.