Ricky Jervis, 24, of Dale Crescent, Congleton, was ordered to serve a minimum 27 years behind bars at Chester Crown Court on July 22 last year.
He was convicted of murdering Macclesfield 19-year-old Zain Sailsman, and admitted possessing a shotgun with intent.
Charlie Beadell, 23, of Buckfast Close, Macclesfield, was also found guilty of murder and given the same sentence.
Jervis, Beadell and their victim were all involved in the supply of Class A drugs, Lord Justice Treacy told London’s Appeal Court yesterday.
He added that ‘violence was used by the drug dealers to enforce discipline’ in their ranks.
Mr Sailsman owed money to Beadell and had, without permission, sold a shotgun which Jervis had provided to him, the hearing was told.
On October 30 2013, Jervis negotiated a meeting with the victim, reassuring him he would be safe.
But that was just a ‘lure’, said the judge.
Driven by Beadell’s girlfriend, Julia Howard, the two men collected Mr Sailsman and took him to some woods in Bullocks Lane, Macclesfield, where he said the shotgun was hidden.
Once there, he was stabbed once in the back by Beadell with a 10 centimetre blade. Howard, who had been waiting outside the woods, took Jervis back to Congleton and transported her boyfriend away from the Macclesfield area.
She also deleted information from her mobile phone, intending to destroy potential evidence against Beadell, the court was told.
The prosecution case at the trial was that Jervis, Beadell and Howard shared an intention to inflict grievous bodily harm upon Mr Sailsman to ‘punish him for the failure to return the shotgun’.
Jervis was ‘under some pressure’ because the weapon had gone missing and knew Beadell had a knife and might use it, prosecutors said.
But he denied involvement in the murder and claimed the sole purpose of visiting the woods was to recover the shotgun.
Howard, 37, formerly of Shaw Street, Macclesfield, was found not guilty of murder but convicted of assisting an offender and perverting the course of justice and jailed for three years.
At the appeal, Jervis claimed his murder conviction was ‘unsafe’ because it was inconsistent with the not guilty verdict in Howard’s case.
But Lord Justice Treacy said: “We don’t think there is any substance in this ground.”
"Excessive punishment" claim rejected
A judge said there were ‘ample grounds’ for distinguishing between the actions of Jervis and Julia Howard.
Unlike Jervis, Howard had not entered the woods and was not involved in drug dealing, he said.
Jervis obtained the gun, was under pressure after its disappearance and had a previous conviction for a kidnap involving an assault, the court heard.
Lawyers for Jervis also pointed out that Beadell had admitted to others that he had committed the murder. But the judge said that was ‘not inconsistent’ with the killing being a joint enterprise as both were present at the time.
Jervis was ‘no more than one metre away’ from the victim when he was stabbed, he said.
Lord Justice Treacy concluded that there were ‘no tenable grounds of appeal’ against Jervis’s conviction. Jervis had 261 days he served on remand deducted from his minimum jail term, but his appeal was otherwise dismissed.
At the original trial Dale Francis Mansfield Thomson, 22, of Buxton Road, Congleton, was convicted by the jury of perverting the course of justice. He burned the clothes Beadell was wearing when he committed the murder.
Thomson got three years detention in a young offenders institution, which his lawyers argued was far too tough.
But Lord Justice Treacy, who was sitting with Mrs Justice Carr and Mr Justice Kerr, rejected arguments that his punishment was excessive.
