A man who shot dead a burglar who was trying to steal from his cannabis farm has been jailed for life with a minimum of 27 years.
Adrian Frost used a sawn-off shotgun to kill Connor Batty, 26, after he and two accomplices tried to break into Frost’s property on Barnsley Road in Hemsworth last September.
Frost then took pictures of the victim’s body and was seen joking before eventually calling 999 and later claiming he acted in self defence.
Frost, 61, was sentenced at Leeds Crown Court after he was previously found guilty of murder. He was also sentenced for a number of firearms and drugs offences, with those terms running concurrently.
The victim and two other men arrived at Frost’s home at about 21:30 BST on 11 September 2025 with the intention of stealing his “crop” to sell on, the court heard.
The trio were equipped with gloves, masks, a pickaxe handle and an imitation handgun and were captured “in a discussion” on CCTV with Frost before the shooting took place.
The court heard Frost refused to give the three men access to his cannabis crop and went back inside and locked the door before retrieving his illegal gun from his “arsenal of weapons”.
It was later found he also kept machetes, a Samurai sword, a butterfly knife and knuckledusters in various locations around his house, including in a sheath on his headboard.
Frost was said to have then laid in wait for the men and “pointed the gun through the banister spindles” before shooting Batty in the chest from less than 1.4m (4.5ft) away.
After Batty collapsed Frost rang his sibling and quipped that the 26-year-old looked “dead as a post” before jokingly asking him if he wanted an aspirin, the court heard.
