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Judge orders ‘laughing’ killers to serve 18 years
THREE killers began life sentences this week for a “heinous attack” on a defenceless man.
Fuelled by drink and drugs, they launched the mindless early-hours savagery at a flat in Swiss Cottage.
Their victim was targeted after having “run-ins” with them. Unfounded rumours were spread that he was “a wrong ’un”, the Old Bailey was told.
As market trader Timothy Stilwell fell dying on the floor of the first-floor, one-bedroom flat at Rowley Way, Abbey Road, his attackers’ laughter could be heard as they disappeared into the night.
Nothing could be done to save the 49-year-old victim, whose grieving sister Sharon wept at the end of the trial.
Rail worker Sean Allen, 20, from Luton, Bedfordshire, Steven Barton, 22, a construction worker and father of a four-month-old son, of Freeling House, West Hampstead, and Scott Robinies, 21, a cycle courier, of Conway House, Quex Road, Kilburn, were found guilty of murder.
Barton’s mother, Tracey, 45, had been involved in a violent dispute with Mr Stilwell – he had hospital treatment for a punch to the eye – just days before he was killed on June 18 last year. The Rowley Way flat was then vandalised and windows shattered.
Judge Richard Hawkins, QC, told the accused: “You were all involved in a revenge attack on Tim Stilwell, triggered a week earlier by a confrontation he had with Mrs Barton. He was set on without mercy. He was stabbed to his heart and he was repeatedly stabbed to the back.”
Recommending that each serves 18 years, Judge Hawkins said he had to balance their youth against the savage nature of the attack.
Detective Chief Inspector Tony Nash said afterwards: “This was a horrific crime driven by the pack mentality of a group of young men who thought they were beyond the law. When our investigation began we were faced with a wall of silence from the community, who either feared or had misplaced loyalty to the defendants.”
Mrs Barton was arrested for threatening a key witness in the murder inquiry and jailed for six months at Snaresbrook Crown Court.
Relatives swap insults as co-accused goes
FIGHTING broke out in the public gallery at the Old Bailey on Tuesday as the brother of an international footballer was cleared of participation in the murder.
Store worker Ricky Parrett, whose brother Dean, 17, plays for Tottenham and is captain of England’s under-17 squad, was freed after a five-week trial.
Mr Parrett, 19, was arrested with his co-accused during an early-hours raid on their homes in November last year.
He has now been reunited with his close-knit family after spending almost a year in custody.
When jurors returned verdicts, police had to restore order after relatives of the accused swapped insults.
The court heard how Mr Parrett, of Casterbridge, Abbey Road, would “hang out” with the convicted killers on the estate. On the night of the murder he was wearing an England shirt with “Rooney” on his back.
The accused blamed each other when they went into the witness box.
Mr Parrett told police on his arrest: “I stayed on the stairwell when it all started kicking off.”
He said he left the area and went home when his companions “went mad and lost it”.
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