Daily Mail
November 27, 2014
Three teenagers killed a man with an axe after he became angry at them for spitting and swearing at his girlfriend.
Paul Thrower died after two 18-year-olds hacked at him with a 4ft axe and stabbed him 10 times at a block of flats in Hayes, Middlesex, in scenes reminiscent of Hollywood horror film The Shining.
Zakariya Subeir and Kiro Halliburton claimed they acted in self defence when Mr Thrower came at them in a rage, smashing through a reinforced glass partition they were hiding behind.
Following a trial at the Old Bailey Halliburton, who delivered the fatal knife wound on 20 February, was found guilty of the murder.
Subeir and an accomplice, Mahdi Osman, also 18, were found not guilty of murder but convicted of manslaughter.
A 17-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was cleared of involvement in the killing.
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 Mr Thrower confronted them, Subeir and Halliburton shut themselves into a bin chute on a first-floor communal balcony of a block of flats in St Dunstan’s Close.
As the 46-year-old hammered on the glass partition with his fist, the 17-year-old found an axe in a shed.
Osman passed it up to Subeir, who had managed to get on to the roof of the adjoining porch.