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A CCTV image of Anthony Joseph eating chips as he boards the 43 bus |
‘Disgrace’: bus killer cleared of murder
Man admits stabbing to death fellow passenger but jury fails to reach verdict for second time
A KNIFEMAN who stabbed a fellow bus passenger to death was cleared of murder on Thursday in a decision branded “disgraceful” by one of the victim’s childhood friends.
Anthony Joseph pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Richard Whelan, on the top deck of the 43 bus in July 2005. But an Old Bailey jury failed to reach a verdict on a murder charge for the second time. The first trial collapsed earlier this year.
Mr Joseph, who will be sentenced on December 20, claimed he was suffering from a bout of paranoid schizophrenia when he lunged at Kentish Town ticket agent Mr Whelan, 28, with a knife after he was asked to stop throwing chips at the victim’s girlfriend. It happened as the bus travelled through Holloway.
Paul Forsythe, who has known Mr Whelan since childhood, said: “It’s disgraceful and typical of the British justice system. They need to lock these guys up for good otherwise they will come out and do it again.”
Only hours before the killing, Mr Joseph had been released from prison in Manchester after serving five weeks on remand before being cleared of all charges.
It emerged after the trial that Mr Joseph, from Islington, had been wrongly freed from prison even though an arrest warrant relating to a burglary offence was outstanding.
Mr Forsythe said: “Richard was a guy who could have offered something to society – this guy (Anthony Joseph) couldn’t. Richard was a stand-up contributor, trying to make a living. He was a lovely bloke.”
Following the verdict Mr Whelan’s family said they were “very disappointed”.
In a statement they said: “The defence of diminished responsibility in this case has been used as a defence for the un-defendable, with so much evidence showing that Anthony Joseph was an angry and vindictive man.
“He has tried to excuse his actions that evening by claiming mental illness, however, in our opinion, he callously killed Richard for no reason at all.”
Mr Whelan suffered seven stab wounds in the attack – one through the heart – and was pronounced dead at the Whittington Hospital.
While others left the bus in disgust when Mr Joseph laughed as he aimed greasy chips from a takeaway bag at them, Mr Whelan had the “bottle” to take action.
“He was not prepared to sit there and do nothing about this behaviour after a chip fell into his girlfriend’s lap,” said Victor Temple, QC prosecuting.
Mr Joseph was determined to cause trouble and had a knife to back him up
Legal secretary Kerry Barker, 38, watched the horror unfold as she and Mr Whelan were on their way home.
They had the tragic misfortune to cross the path of jobless Mr Joseph, who was high on a cocktail of drink and crack cocaine.
Nine men and three women on the jury watched CCTV footage of the killing. But after three days of consideration they told Mr Justice Gross that they still had not reached a verdict on the murder charge.
Miss Barker, in tears as she described the knifing, recalled how the attacker left the bus calmly near Archway station. He discarded his blood-stained clothing and then made a series of phone calls threatening the lives of the members of a local family he blamed for his prison incarceration.
Mr Joseph’s QC, Philip Katz, told the jury it was “probable” that as early as 2004 he was suffering from schizophrenia. |
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