Former British high jump champion Claude Moseley was allegedly murdered by a notorious north London crime gang.
The 32-year-old athlete was stabbed in the back with a samurai sword at a house in Bethune Road, Stoke Newington on 4 February 1994.
Although he had been a successful member of the Haringey Athletics Club, detectives believed he began working for the Adams Family syndicate’s drug trafficking operation. It was rumoured he was killed for skimming off the profits.
An enforcer for the syndicate, Gilbert Wynter, was charged with the murder after a witness came forward to police.
But on 16 February 1995, Wynter walked free from the Old Bailey when the witness refused to give evidence after being told he could not remain anonymous.
He claimed that he had been threatened by a prison officer and an inmate.
Sentencing him to three months imprisonment for contempt of court at the Old Bailey, Judge Michael Coombe said: ‘A murderer such as the person who killed the victim in this case is likely to strike again and again until men have the courage to give evidence whatever the consequences are to them.
‘It is terrifying that a man who commits a murder of this kind can get away with it because a man refuses to do his duty and give evidence.
‘This was a particularly vicious type of murder and I am told that those who were there belonged to that section of society which could be described as hardened criminals.
‘There is no doubt you are a terrified man. Equally however, you could have taken the opportunity to have a disguised identity and got help in protecting yourself and your family.’
Wynter, a ‘self-employed jeweller’, went missing on 1 March 1998. It is thought he too was killed by the Adams Family. Legend has it he was buried under the Millennium Dome.
In May 2011, detectives launched a ‘last ditch’ investigation into his disappearance, linking it to the murder of another Adams associate Solly Nahome. Both cases remain unsolved.