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Civil servant 'hacked son of ex-lover to death in revenge'
Kiran Randhawa1 Dec 2008
A bitter civil servant killed his former lover's son in a revenge attack, the Old Bailey heard today.
University student Michael Jones, 18, was hacked and bludgeoned to death because Gerard Tony Paul, 46, thought the teenager stood in the way of the relationship, it was alleged.
Michael's mother, Kathleen Kirby-Jones, returned home from work to find his blood-soaked body in a room which they used as an office.
After hearing footsteps at the house in Edmonton, Ms Kirby-Jones had to barricade herself in the room as the killer attempted to force the door open before fleeing.
Paul was "bitter and twisted" that his one-year affair with Ms Kirby-Jones had ended a month before the attack on 13 March this year, said Brian Altman QC, prosecuting.
Michael had suffered a sustained attack, having at one stage been bound with masking tape before he was stabbed in the back, the court heard.
He had also been slashed about the chest and beaten about the head causing fractures to the skull and face, it was alleged.
Paul, of Gilbert Street, Enfield, denies murdering the Queen Mary University of London geography student. At the time Paul was a middle-ranking civil servant responsible for the child protection data base at the Department for Children, Schools and Families in Whitehall.
"The defendant was well aware of the close relationship between Ms Kirby-Jones and Michael," Mr Altman told the court.
"You might think Michael had become an unwelcome obstacle to the success of the relationship."
Having entered the top-floor maisonette Ms Kirby-Jones had discovered that the hall lights were not working, the stair carpets leading to Michael's loft bedroom had been ripped up, and a computer had been left on.
She entered the office where she discovered chairs around a dining table had been pulled out but could not be pushed back in because of an obstruction, the Old Bailey heard.
It was then that she discovered Michael's body under the table, it was claimed.
As she tried to revive him, she heard the attacker's footsteps in the house and would have been the next victim had she not barricaded herself in the office, the court was told.
Mr Altman said: "The intruder had no immediate intention to leave that house.
"Instead of running out of the maisonette, he tried to open the office door behind which Mrs Kirby-Jones and her dead son were."
He added: "This was a deliberate planned and coolly executed murder in cold blood by a bitter and twisted man at the conclusion of a relationship where his ambitions had been thwarted."
The case continues.
Reader views (1)
I hope the courts come down hard on this mentally deranged man - makes me wonder what type of people they employ in the Civil Service - a mid range civil servant in Child Protection - now that IS a worry....... I feel very sorry for that poor boy's mother. She has to live with this for the rest of her life.
- Barbara, Sydney, Australia,, 02/12/2008 06:42
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