Evening Standard
A teenager who stabbed a man 11 times in a horrific axe and knife attack reminiscent of the Hollywood movie The Shining was sentenced to a minimum of 17 years at the Old Bailey yesterday.
Handyman Paul Thrower died after two youths hacked at him with a 4ft long axe and stabbed him at flats in Hayes, Middlesex in February.
Zakariya Subeir and Kiro Halliburton, both now 18, hit out when Thrower came at them in a rage, smashing through a reinforced glass partition they were hiding behind.
Halliburton, who delivered the fatal knife wound, was found guilty of murder while Subeir, who hit the victim twice with an axe, and Mahdi Osman, also 18, were convicted of manslaughter.
Sentencing Judge John Bevan QC said Thrower had been the victim of “10 seconds of extreme violence”.
He said Halliburton, who was only 17 at the time, could have had a far longer sentence had he been born a month later making him 18 and in a higher sentencing bracket.
Imposing a sentence of detention at Her Majesty’s pleasure, the juvenile equivalent of a life term, the judge told him: “You can consider yourself fortunate.
“The carrying of a knife has become endemic among some teenagers in part s of
“It is the resort of a coward. You are a dangerous young man, repeatedly aggressive when armed with a knife.”
Subeir was sentenced to eight years in a young offenders’ institute with an extended licence period of four years. Osman received five and a half years.
The court heard how the victim had been drinking and became very angry when his girlfriend Geraldine Roberts told him the youths swore, spat and threw a drink at her earlier that day.
When Thrower confronted them, Subeir and Halliburton shut themselves into a bin chute on a first-floor communal balcony at St Dunstan’s Close.
As the furious 46-year-old hammered with his fists on the glass partition, the 17-year-old found an axe in a shed and Osman passed it up to Subeir, who had managed to get onto the roof of the adjoining porch.
But when Thrower smashed the reinforced glass and began to crawl through the gap, Subeir hit him twice on the head and once on the shoulder with the axe and Halliburton stabbed him repeatedly in the back with a knife.
The victim emerged from the bin chute covered in blood, staggering, holding the axe before he collapsed and died from a stab to the heart.
Said the judge: “This was a wicked and unnecessary crime. A ranting inebriate is not match for a knife and axe wielded by young and fit teenagers.”
As the defendants ran away, Roberts chased after them. She was one of a number of residents who had called 999 to alert police who arrived within minutes.
Afterwards, all the defendants scattered - according to them, because they thought they would not be believed.
Halliburton shaved off his plaits and fled to Leeds in Yorkshire. When he was apprehended, he gave a false name.
Subeir flew to Somalia, via Dubai, but came back about three weeks later and was arrested on the plane at Heathrow airport.
Osman went to ground and was arrested five days after the incident.
In the years leading up to the murder, residents of St Dunstan’s Close had complained about anti-social behaviour from groups of youths hanging around even though they did not live there.
Subeir, of Uxbridge, and Halliburton and Osman, both of Hayes, had all denied murder.
A man was today jailed for 12 years over the “senseless killing” of a student who was attacked in a fight as he tried to protect his friend.
Rio Julienne-Clarke, 21, stabbed Dwayne Simpson in the heart after he intervened when he saw a friend being chased along Brixton Road.
The Old Bailey heard Julienne-Clarke and Simpson were involved in a “long-running dispute”.
Simpson, 20, a former student at Lambeth College, followed Julienne-Clarke in his car on the afternoon of February 25 before getting out and confronting him.
Julienne-Clarke then stabbed him multiple times in an alleyway, the court heard.
Police and passers-by gave him CPR as he lay on the ground in a pool of blood in St John’s Crescent.
Paramedics arrived soon afterwards and took him to hospital but he died two days later from his injuries.
Julienne-Clarke, of no fixed address, was yesterday jailed for manslaughter.
Rhianna Addison, 19, of Shakespear Road, Brixton, was acquitted of assisting an offender and perverting the course of justice.
Two other people - a 41-year-old woman and an 18-year-old man - remain on bail after being arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender.
Three other boys, all aged 16, were released with no further action following Mr Simpson’s death.
Detective inspector Nathan Eason, who led the investigation, said: “Dwayne senseless killing has caused immense suffering to his family and friends.
“This has been a difficult and complex investigation and officers wish to pass on their gratitude to those members of the community that provided assistance.”
