Man jailed for murder of Mother Teresa's ex-assistant in UK

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A man in the UK has been sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of a charity worker, who worked with Mother Teresa as a special assistant in Calcutta in the early 1990s and also helped set up schools for girls in India.

Colin Payne, 61, was found guilty of murdering 54-year-old Mark Bloomfield in July last year at Swansea Crown Court in Wales this week.

The court heard that Payne, a martial arts expert, had launched an attack on Bloomfield to "teach him a lesson" after he had brushed his girlfriend's back with a beer can at a pub in Swansea.

"Mark Bloomfield built a legacy that will continue to live on in the countless lives that he encountered. As special assistant to Mother Teresa in Calcutta, he was an essential contributor to her mission and to those she cared for," read a family's tribute statement.

"In India, he organised free cataract surgery camps and founded schools that gave rare access to education for girls. In Africa, he helped preserve wild game by introducing ultralight aircraft to combat the onslaught of poachers," it noted.

According to 'The Daily Telegraph', during his time with Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, now Kolkata, Bloomfield helped people who were terminally ill have dignified deaths. He later went on to work with the nuns to open schools for girls in different parts of India.

"All that Bloomfield did that day in the Full Moon (pub) was to touch your girlfriend's back momentarily with a beer can. That cost him his life," Judge Paul Thomas said in court on Thursday.

"You wanted to show regulars you were not a man who would be trifled with. You had an image to protect as self-styled hard man. You are a man in his sixties who resorts to great violence for slightest provocations and to cement your rep [reputation]," he said.

Payne had pleaded guilty to lesser charges of perverting the course of justice and manslaughter claiming self-defence, but was instead found guilty of murder following the trial.

The court was told how he dragged Bloomfield to the floor by his throat and kicked him in his head, before taking the attack outside and punching "two expert blows" to his head.

Bloomfield was knocked to the ground after hitting his head on the concrete, never to regain consciousness, and died in hospital two days later.