A HITMAN who once escaped from Redditch Magistrates Court has been sentenced to at least 30 years in prison for the murder of a drug dealer in Birmingham.

Peter O'Toole, 26, jumped the dock at the courthouse in Grove Street in 1999 in what police believed to have been a pre-planned escape.

That time, O'Toole had been in court charged with slashing a teenager's face.

There was a massive police presence at his trial in Birmingham this week.

O'Toole had also previously been found guilty of attempted murder of another man in Birmingham.