Inquiry into killer wrongly freed



Anthony Joseph

'Smirking killer' just left jail
The price of intervening
An inquiry is being carried out into why a schizophrenic who stabbed a man to death had been wrongly released from prison just hours before the attack.

Anthony Joseph had been released from prison in Manchester but should have been detained to face burglary charges.

Within hours of his release he stabbed 28-year-old Richard Whelan seven times after throwing chips at his girlfriend on a London bus.

Joseph admitted manslaughter on grounds of diminished responsibility.

He will be sentenced on 20 December.

The Old Bailey heard how Joseph turned on his victim after throwing chips at passengers on a bus on the Holloway Road in July 2005.

Mr Whelan, a hospitality worker, was stabbed through the heart but a jury trying Joseph for murder twice failed to reach a verdict and the prosecution then accepted his plea to manslaughter.


Our view all the time was that he was guilty of murder, he had the mental state to commit murder not manslaughter
DCI John Macdonald

Joseph had been arrested in Sussex on 9 June 2005 and charged with two offences under the Child Abduction Act.

He was remanded in custody until 29 July - the day he killed Mr Whelan - but the case against him collapsed.

In a statement, Surrey Police said they were "mystified" as to why the prosecution case collapsed.

At a hearing before magistrates in Staines on 29 July, lawyers for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) apparently asked for a three week adjournment to clarify issues in the case.

The application was refused and Joseph was freed even though he was on bail for a burglary offence which was being investigated by Merseyside Police.

It has been revealed that the Police National Computer (PNC) did not contain the detail that Joseph had been remanded in custody over the abduction charges.

'Vindictive man'

When Joseph failed to appear for a court hearing in Liverpool on the burglary charge, it was assumed that he had skipped bail and a warrant for his arrest was issued.

Merseyside Police say this warrant was entered onto the PNC but Surrey Police say they were not aware of this warrant until after Joseph was released on 29 July - the day he killed Mr Whelan.

Richard Whelan
Mr Whelan was stabbed to death on the top deck of the bus
The defence said Joseph was suffering from the onset of paranoid schizophrenia when he carried out the attack on Mr Whelan, of Kentish Town, north London.

But Mr Whelan's family said in a statement that they believed "the defence of diminished responsibility in this case has been used as a defence for the un-defendable".

The evidence, they said, showed that Joseph was "an angry and vindictive man"

It added: "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."

In a statement from Surrey Police Authority, its chief executive Sue Martin said they were "very sad about the tragic death of Mr Whelan".

She said they were waiting for the outcome of a review into why Joseph was not in custody at the time he killed Mr Whelan.

'Disappointed'

The Labour MP, Keith Vaz, who chairs the Home Affairs Select Committee told BBC News the information about Joseph should have been readily available.

He said: "We shouldn't be going over old ground again because this is something that ought to have been sorted out after Soham.

"There ought to be a national computer that is efficient and effective. The information ought to have gone on immediately."

Detective Chief Inspector John Macdonald said he was "disappointed" that Joseph was not convicted of murder.

"Our view all the time was that he was guilty of murder, he had the mental state to commit murder not manslaughter," he said.

exactly what I think @ MGL

I'm amazed that two juries could not decide tht this was a cold blooded murder