LONDON—A jury has ruled an illiterate Eritrean who was granted asylum in Britain in 2019 murdered a complete stranger two years later in a random knife attack in one of London’s busiest shopping areas.
Tedi Fanta Hagos, 26, was ruled mentally unfit to stand trial for the murder of 60-year-old Steve Dempsey, who suffered fatal stab wounds as he walked past the Microsoft store in Oxford Circus, central London, on July 1, 2021.
But on Wednesday, after deliberating for only 20 minutes, a jury at the Old Bailey decided Fanta had committed the “act of murder” and Judge Michael Topolski said the only appropriate sentence was an indefinite hospital order.
Topolski said, “This defendant launched a random and wholly unprovoked attack” on Dempsey and added, “Had that attack not been brought to an end by courageous actions of passersby” he had no doubt he would have gone on to attack others.
The judge said at the time of the attack Fanta was “untreated, uncared for, and very dangerous.”
Fanta, who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, will be detained at Ashworth high security psychiatric hospital in Merseyside.
Topolski also gave both skateboarders a public commendation and recommended they be granted £750 each for their “courageous” actions.
The court heard Fanta, who arrived in Britain in 2014, had previous convictions for criminal damage, assaulting a police constable and an emergency worker, and was on bail for possession of a saw at the time he killed Dempsey.
The court heard Dempsey’s sister, Kathleen, who lives in Italy, received a missed call from him which had been made after he was stabbed.
She said she did not ring him back and only found out he had died the following day.
“The shock was terrible and I was overcome with grief. I felt like I couldn’t breathe,” she said, in a victim impact statement read out in court.
Fanta, who had been granted asylum in 2019, was living in the Welsh city of Swansea at the time of the attack.
A drop-in centre volunteer in Swansea who knew Fanta well gave a statement to police in which she said she had noticed a “rapid deterioration” in his mental health in the weeks before the attack.
Patrick Upward, defending, told the court his client’s parents had both died in Eritrea when he was a child and he was then conscripted into the Eritrean army at the age of 12.
He said he was shot and also tortured during his time in the army before he eventually deserted, spent time in Zimbabwe, before crossing the Sahara Desert and again being tortured while in Libya.
‘By Then the Damage Was Done’: Defence Lawyer
Upward said: “Eventually he arrived in the UK via a circuitous route through Europe. He was finally given refugee status. But by then the damage was done.”The court heard Fanta travelled from Swansea to London by train, then visited the Ethiopian Embassy before walking around Hyde Park and Mayfair before arriving in Oxford Street around 7 p.m.
The jury was shown CCTV footage of Fanta—who was wearing a red top, hoodie, and gloves on a warm summer’s day—wandering around near Oxford Circus.
Just before 8 p.m. he took up a position outside the Microsoft store and observed shoppers as they walked past him.
Moments later he suddenly lunged towards Dempsey, stabbing him several times as he ran into the road and tried to escape.
A double decker bus was forced to brake and onlookers watched in horror as Fanta climbed on top of Dempsey and continued stabbing him.
Prosecutor Caroline Carberry, KC, told the jury: “His victim could have been anyone who was in close proximity to him during the course of that day in central London. Sadly for Stephen Dempsey and his family it was him.”
‘It Crossed My Mind That It Might Be a Terrorist Attack’
Carberry read out a statement Verceles gave to police in which he said: “Injesh and I looked at each other in disbelief. We knew we had to act. There were lots of people around but they couldn’t do anything. I didn’t think of the repercussions. It crossed my mind that it might be a terrorist attack.”He added: “Injesh threw his skateboard at him and I aimed mine at the back of his head. I didn’t want to fatally injure him but I just wanted to stop him. I think the blows from our skateboards might have knocked him unconscious slightly.”
Verceles said: “Some people were filming with their phones. I didn’t think it was very helpful. Either help or get out of the way.”
Khadka, in his police statement, said: “I quickly analysed what was happening and I realised I was in the best position to help, because I had a skateboard ... If I didn’t stop the man would hurt [Dempsey] more or hurt other people.”
Fanta was knocked unconscious and disarmed and when he came round a minute later Khadka restrained him in a chokehold until security guards, and then police officers, arrived and eventually arrested the attacker.
Khadka said, “I’m not trained in martial arts and I only know of a chokehold from watching UFC.”
The jury heard both skateboarders were so shocked and traumatised by the incident they immediately left the scene and were only tracked down after the police put out an appeal for them.
Several witnesses, including police officers, gave evidence about what Fanta said after he was arrested.
One officer, Gary May, said: “He was rambling and it was hard to make out what he was saying but I made out the phrase: ‘You make me gay. I am not gay. Black people are pure.”
Dempsey underwent emergency surgery but died just before midnight.
May said he woke up Fanta in his cell at Charing Cross police station at 1:20 a.m. and told him he would be charged with murder.
May said: “He said ‘What?’ He did not appear concerned or remorseful and immediately went back to sleep.”
Carberry read out a statement from Maria Nicholas, a volunteer at a drop-in centre at St. David’s Church in Swansea, who tried to help Fanta when he arrived in the city.
She said: “He said he had arrived in the country in August 2014 and it took five years for his application for asylum to be granted ... He is unable to read or write and has had no formal education. He has never had a job.”
Nicholas said Fanta was homeless for a while, before he was given accommodation—a one-bedroom flat—by the council in the Ravenhill district of Swansea.
She said Fanta also told her he had been tortured by Eritrean soldiers but she said he never wanted to talk about it.
Nicholas said a few weeks before Dempsey was killed she noticed a “rapid deterioration” in Fanta’s mental health.
“He said, ‘White people are following me,’ and he would talk to himself, sometimes in his own language,” said Nicholas, who said she was aware he had been sectioned while living in Newham, east London, in 2020.
She said she saw him in late June 2021, along with a housing support worker from Swansea Council, and he was showing signs of paranoia and was saying: “They are following me. The animals are there.”
Nicholas said she discussed a “plan of action” with the housing support worker but then on July 1, 2021 she received a phone call from an official at the Ethiopian Embassy in London who said Fanta was there.
She said: “I said Tedi wasn’t very well and was struggling with his mental health and wasn’t in a good place. I was concerned that he had gone to London.”
The same report said Eritreans have a 98 percent asylum grant rate.
