Three men who stabbed to death a man with two children after he disturbed them trying to steal a car outside his home last Christmas were jailed for life yesterday.

The judge at Leeds Crown Court told Rashad Zaman, 21, Rangzaib Akhtar, 20, and Raees Khan, 21, that their attack with a screwdriver on Kevin Jackson, who was 31, had been "cowardly and horrific". He said: "You outnumbered Mr Jackson three to one. You fought with him and killed him."

Mr Justice Jackson sentenced the men after the jury delivered an 11-1 guilty verdict against Zaman. Akhtar and Khan had been found guilty the previous day after a six-week trial. Mr Jackson, whose sons are now eight and two, was attacked after returning from a Christmas drink with his brother-in-law to his home in Copley, Halifax, West Yorkshire.

His wife, Julie, heard a noise as Zaman, Akhtar and Khan used a screwdriver to break into her father's Toyota RAV4 vehicle, parked outside. From the upstairs window she saw a man trying to start the ignition and roused her husband, who ran out shouting: "You'd better be able to run." Mr Jackson was overpowered by the men, who stabbed him in the head with the screwdriver, knocked him down with a tree branch and kicked him before leaving him fatally wounded in the gutter.

Mr Jackson, a maintenance engineer, died two days later on New Year's Day. At his funeral, he was described as "the most energetic of people" who would never refuse a request for practical help.

The jury of seven men and five women had deliberated without knowing that Akhtar attacked a fellow inmate while on remand. During an education lesson on 15 March, he swung a jug full of hot water at the inmate, knocking him down and causing a wound that required 15 stitches as well as scalding his neck and back.

Although Khan was the only one with previous convictions, the three men were involved in a three-month car crime spree at the time of the killing. Two witnesses testified to having been attacked by a gang trying to steal their cars but it could not be proved that the defendants were the culprits.

Khan told the jury he "poked" Mr Jackson with the screwdriver in self-defence. Akhtar said he hid in a garden when Mr Jackson gave chase. Khan declined to testify. But blood on the screwdriver matched Zaman, blood on Akhtar's boots matched Mr Jackson, and skin under Mr Jackson's fingernails matched Khan's DNA.

Mrs Jackson said: "Waiting for a verdict has been the equivalent of waiting for Kevin's life-support machine to be switched off. It has been like watching my husband die all over again."