A man has admitted to the manslaughter by diminished responsibility of an 87-year-old mobility scooter rider in a “motiveless” knife attack in west London five days after being released from prison.
Lee Byer, 45, stabbed Thomas O’Halloran in the neck and chest in Greenford in 2022. It can now be reported that Byer had numerous previous convictions and days earlier had been released from Wormwood Scrubs prison in south-west London.
He denied murder but pleaded guilty to the lesser offence of manslaughter by diminished responsibility and having an offensive weapon on Monday.
Gareth Patterson KC, prosecuting, accepted the pleas after mental health reports found Byer was psychotic, hearing voices, suffering from paranoid delusions and paranoid schizophrenia.
He said the defendant’s mental state provided an explanation for what was a “motiveless attack”.
Shortly after 4pm on 16 August 2022, police received a 999 call from a member of the public who found the victim on his scooter coming from a passageway after a shopping trip.
O’Halloran, who was originally from Co Clare in west Ireland, was able to tell the passerby that he had been stabbed, the Old Bailey previously heard. The police arrived within minutes by which time the victim had collapsed and was being helped by members of the public.
Police and medics took over first aid but he was pronounced dead at the scene at 4.54pm. O’Halloran and the defendant were caught on CCTV heading towards the passageway where their paths crossed.
When he left the passageway, a knife could be seen in Byer’s hand. He was caught on camera depositing a knife handle in a drain on the way back to his mother’s house.
After CCTV images of the suspect were released in the media, Byer was identified by people working in the criminal justice system.
Upon his arrest at his mother’s house on 18 August, he told officers that he could not have committed the crime as: “I was in prison, I was in prison, so it is impossible”.
Byer had been released from prison on 11 August, five days before the attack. He had 15 previous convictions recorded against him for 30 offences dating back to when he was 14 years old.
Byer is currently being held at Broadmoor high security psychiatric hospital.
Old Bailey judge Mark Lucraft, who adjourned sentencing until 10 May, said: “The issue for me will be to consider the degree of responsibility retained at the time and to work out the appropriate sentence.”
DCI Laura Nelson, who led the Metropolitan police’s investigation, said: “First and foremost, my thoughts today are with Thomas’s family who continue to feel the loss of their much loved father and grandfather. His death was senseless.”