Handyman Paul Thrower was hacked with an axe and stabbed to death when he confronted a gang of youths who spat at and taunted his girlfriend, a court heard today (Friday, October 31).
Mr Thrower, 46, became ‘absolutely enraged’ after hearing about the abuse hurled at his partner by the troublemakers hanging around their block of flats in Hayes, west London.
“He had reached a tipping point and he ran out of the flat and after them,” prosecutor Peter Finnegan QC told the Old Bailey.
“He had trouble with groups of youths before and he wasn’t going to put up with it again. He’d had enough.”
The Old Bailey heard how Mr Thrower spotted two of the youths and chased them into a rubbish chute area before being set upon with an axe and a knife on the evening of Thursday, February 20 this year.
He suffered three axe wounds to the head and shoulder and up to 10 stab wounds to his back and upper body.
The fatal knife wound pierced his lung and heart and he collapsed minutes later as he went back towards his flat.
Kiro Halliburton and Zakariya Subeir, both 18, carried out the fatal attack after being handed the axe by two 17 year-old boys, who cannot be named for legal reasons, jurors were told.
Mr Finnegan told the court: “The catalyst for the confrontation was the group’s behaviour that evening towards Geraldine Roberts, who was the girlfriend of Paul Thrower.
“She had just returned from some nearby shops and got into something of an argument with a group of young men.
“There was bad language, there was abuse, there was taunting. It wasn’t the first time such things had happened at this block of plats and she told them to leave as they didn’t live there.
“She was spat at, and also some drink was thrown at her from a carton.’
Ms Roberts told the teenagers she was going to tell her boyfriend and returned to her ground floor flat in St Dunstan’s Close at around 9.30pm.
Mr Thrower immediately left the flat and approached Halliburton and Subeir shouting obscenities, the court heard.
The two youths ran up to the first floor landing towards a partially enclosed area around the rubbish chute and closed the door to stop Mr Thrower following them.
CCTV cameras captured Mr Thrower trying to smash through the glass panels with his bare hands before kicking a way through.
It was as he crawled through the opening into the enclosed area that he was attacked with the axe and at least one knife, the court heard.
The prosecutor said that the two teenagers ‘decided to attack him rather than avoid him.’
CCTV shows both Halliburton and Subeir running from the scene followed by the fatally injured Mr Thrower. Moments later Mr Thrower collapsed as he reached the top of the stairs.
The police investigation later revealed that the two 17 year-olds also fled the scene at the same time, jurors heard.
Mr Finnegan told jurors how the 17-year-olds ‘played significant roles’ in the events that led up to Mr Thrower’s death.
One passed the axe to Halliburton and Subeir over a low wall, and the other ‘pointed out where to pass it up’, he said.
Mr Thrower was pronounced dead at hospital at 11.34pm.
Halliburton, of Tollgate Drive, Hayes; Subeir, of Rockingham Road, Uxbridge; and the two 17 year-olds, from Hayes, deny murder.
The trial continues.
Public meeting vents feelings at police after death of Paul Thrower.
