Camden New Journal - by PAUL KEILTHY Published: 14 February 2008
Miriam Baldock
Double life sentence for Baldock knife attack
A FORMER Foreign Legionnaire who confessed to a frenzied knife attack on the surrogate parents “who gave him nothing but love” began two life sentences on Friday.
Stuart Forsyth, 41, murdered Miriam Baldock, 61, and tried to kill Maurice Baldock, 60, as they slept in their home in the Maiden Lane estate, Camden Town, in which they had sheltered him as a troubled deserter 20 years before.
At the Old Bailey, Judge Martin Stephens QC told Forsyth he had been guilty of a “gross abuse of trust” and sentenced him to a minimum of 19 years.
Mr Baldock, who summoned aid to his dying wife despite his own three stab wounds, said: “By murdering Miriam he has torn the heart out of the family and we will never be the same again.”
Forsyth went through the open back door of the Linkwood Walk maisonette at 5.30am on August 11 last year after a nine-hour binge on alcohol and cocaine.
The Baldocks and their daughter had taken care of his two daughters, seven and nine, as his own relationship fell apart through drink and violence.
His defence counsel said he suffered post traumatic stress disorder from his military service but accepted full responsibility for the attack, which had left him “anguished”.