Four British teenagers of a racist gang have been jailed for life by a court for the cold-blooded murder of a Pakistani taxi driver last year.

The four, some only recently out of school at the time of the calculated attack on Mohammed Parvaiz, a father of three, in Huddersfield, northern England, were given long minimum terms by Judge Dame Heather Steel, who called the crime 'savage beyond belief.'

Sentencing Christopher Murphy and Michael Hand, both 19, Graeme Slavin, 18 and Steven Utley, 17, she told Leeds crown Court on Tuesday that the 'Huddersfield gang' had been merciless to their 41-year-old victim, kicking him and stamping on his head as he lay dying in the street last July.

Steel said the last words that Parvaiz was likely to have heard were racist abuse from the teenagers.

The murderers had gloated in a local pub, with Murphy saying: "I wonder if I have got Paki juice on the bottom of my shoes."

He and Hand were ordered to serve at least 25 and 21 years before parole was considered, as ringleaders of the attack. Slavin and Utley were given 17 years' minimum terms. All had denied racially-aggravated murder but were convicted a month ago after Hand changed his plea to guilty.