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Review of 2014

The Metropolitan Police official homicide list gives a total of 92 homicides for 2014.

This figure, which includes murders, manslaughters, corporate manslaughters and infanticides, is a 15 per cent decrease on the previous year, 2013, with 109.

We have added 85 cases to the website for 2014 and are awaiting further updates on several others which have not been confirmed publicly as homicides (rather than suspicious or unexplained deaths).

This post and the graphics shown below will be updated as more information arrives. Updates will be listed at the end.

Looking at the confirmed cases for 2014 and comparing them to previous years, we can see that the number of shootings has reached a new low, while fatal knife attacks have increased.

The number of female victims also decreased to 22 (from 39 of 108 in 2013).

The number of teenage victims remains relatively low at eleven, compared to 12 in 2013.

Now here is the spread of victim ages for each year from 2011 to 2014. This shows that while most victims are aged between 21 and 30, the number of victims in this age range has almost halved during this period.

NOTE: This post was updated on 1 February 2015 to include the manslaughter of Tommy Main (previously classed as unexplained death) and on 14 February to include the manslaughter of William Boots (following the charging of the suspect). In May 2015 the manslaughter of Adam Hird was added after suspects were charged.

Unsolved Murders in London: 2014

These two murder cases in London in 2014 remain unsolved. Can you help?

Mashboor Hussain, 73, collapsed and died during a suspected burglary at his home in Tooting on 11 February 2014.

Police were called to the house in Selkirk Road at 11.45am after passers-by reported seeing two men banging on the front door. The suspects, one of whom was armed with a gun, forced their way into the house after Mr Hussain opened the door. After a scuffle in the hallway they fled on foot with a red Nike shoe box containing cash and a mobile phone.

Mr Hussain, a grandfather-of-eight, collapsed after police officers arrived at the scene and was pronounced dead at 12.53pm. His wife and daughter were in the house at the time of the incident. A post-mortem examination gave cause of death as coronary heart disease but the pathologist concluded his collapse was likely to have resulted from the disturbance at his home.

Two men were charged with aggravated burglary and manslaughter but the case was dropped in June 2014 after the Crown Prosecution Service discontinued the case due to insufficient evidence. The case remains unsolved.

DCI Graeme Gwyn said: “I believe there are still people who have yet to speak to us and would urge them to contact us. Were you in the area of Selkirk Road at the time? Did you see or hear anything? Mr Hussain’s family remain desperate to see those responsible for his murder brought to justice.”

Call the incident room on 020 8721 4622.

Radio DJ Luke Jackson, 33, was stabbed to death at his mother’s home in Pimlico on 19 December 2014. Police were called to the address in Lumley Flats at 6.05pm and he was pronounced dead at the scene. A post-mortem found he had suffered multiple stab wounds including a fatal injury to his heart.

Police issued CCTV footage of two people they wanted to identify.

CCTV of two people police wanted to identify

Detective Inspector Jon Meager said: “We believe that on the night of his death, Luke had arranged to meet two people at the flat where he was stabbed and killed. Officers are keen to find out why that meeting was arranged, and who arranged it.”

An inquest heard that Mr Jackson, known as MC Bluetooth, had been trying to arrange to sell £300 worth of MDMA.

Police made several arrests but nobody has ever been charged. Contact the incident room on 020 8358 0200

Homicides ‘to fall below 100’

The BBC reported recently that the yearly number of homicides* in London is expected to fall below 100 for the first time since the 1960s.

According to the Metropolitan Police, by 22 December there had been 93 victims of homicide in 2014. (UPDATE: The final figure for the year was 95).

From our own figures we are only aware of 82 confirmed homicide cases. When we say confirmed, we mean confirmed by the police through a statement or by the courts if a suspect is charged with murder or manslaughter.

This figure of 82 however does not include cases that the Metropolitan Police describe as unexplained or suspicious deaths (Tommy Main, Lee Buckley, Adam Hird and Georgina Drinkwater, plus an unnamed 33 year-old man in Soho).

It also does not include the investigation into the deaths of two babies at a London hospital.

Our experience is that a number of extra cases emerge over time as the police investigations are concluded and charges. For example, at the end of 2013 we had only identified 101 cases whereas the figure now stands at 108 (compared to 100 in 2012).

The Metropolitan Police use a slightly different system and gave the BBC the following count:

2013 – 101
2012 – 102
2011 – 116
2010 – 114
2009 – 128
2008 – 147
2007 – 155

We will of course be looking at the 2014 homicide cases in more depth next month in our annual review.

*We use the word homicide here because it includes offences of murder and manslaughter. Although this website is called ‘murdermap’ we cover both murder and manslaughter (one reason being that suspected murders often end up as manslaughter for a variety of reasons).

Off the Map: Zbigniew Michniewicz

The death of Zbigniew Michniewicz in December 2013 was originally treated as a murder after a postmortem revealed evidence of an assault.

Five suspects were arrested on suspicion of murder but nobody was ever charged with causing the death and a medical expert concluded that that the death was caused by drug abuse rather than the injuries to his head.

In June 2014 three men were jailed for plotting to conceal the death of Zbigniew Michniewicz by digging a grave in the back garden of the squat where they all lived in Greenford.

As a result of the medical conclusion in this case we have decided to delete this case from the database.

This is the text of the page before deletion in July 2014:

The body of Zbigniew Michniewicz, 36, was found at a squat in Greenford, west London, on 5 December 2013.
When police called at 251 Greenford Road at around 12.35pm they found a 5ft deep grave had been prepared in the back garden.
Mr Michniewicz was pronounced dead at the scene and an initial postmortem revealed the cause of death was a head injury, including fractures to his eye-socket, cheekbone and jaw.
Detectives said they believed he died a few days after being assaulted at the house on 13 November 2013.
However a pathologist later concluded that Mr Michniewicz died of drug abuse rather than the assault injuries.
Four men aged 20, 20, 40 and 46, and a 17 year-old woman were arrested on suspicion of murder during the investigation.
On 7 March 2014 Grzegorz Roznerski, 40 (17/11/73), of The Crescent, Slough, pleaded guilty to conspiring to prevent the lawful and decent burial of a dead body.
On 5 June 2014 Arkadiusz Majchrazak, 45 [28/5/68], no fixed abode, and Piotr Juszczak, 20 [13/03/93], of Greenford Road, Greenford, were convicted of conspiring to prevent the lawful and decent burial of a dead body after a trial at Isleworth Crown Court.
On 9 June Majchrazak was jailed for nine years, Juszczak was jailed for two years and nine months and Roznerski was jailed for two years and three months.
murdermap

The Cycle of Crime

Jae’don Fearon was ten years old when his father was shot dead.

He was asleep in bed that night in April 2003 when gunmen opened fire on an Audi TT driving away from a nightclub in Clerkenwell, east London. The front passenger, 26 year-old father-of-two Jason Fearon, was found slumped in his seat with a single bullet wound to the head. The case remains unsolved but detectives believe that he was the unintended victim of a gangland shooting.

At the funeral Jae’don Fearon gave a speech – which was filmed and shown on TV – vowing that his father’s death had made him more determined to become a professional footballer and a father figure for his younger sister.

The speech was used in an anti-crime video and Jae’don became a spokesperson for the Mothers Against Guns group. He was awarded a Woman’s Own Children of Courage award and met Tony Blair and Prince Charles and was still campaigning against gun crime in 2006, aged 13.

Tragically Jae’don failed to uphold the vow he made as a young boy to stay out of trouble.

In 2011, aged 18, he found himself driving around in a car with Rory Gordon, a 20 year who made a living dealing cannabis and stealing luxury cars to order for criminals. The plan was for Gordon to take the car from its owner, by force if necessary, while Fearon sat in the getaway vehicle. Once Gordon had seized the vehicle, Fearon would follow him to the edge of Epping Forest where the car was to be left for collection.

Their payment for carrying out the carjacking was to be £1,000.

It was the misfortune of 32 year-old businessman Harjinder Singh Bhurji to be driving the car they wanted, a black Mercedes SLK. While Fearon waited nearby, Gordon confronted Mr Bhurji and demanded the keys. When Mr Bhurji insisted he did not have them, Gordon stabbed him in the chest. The injury proved fatal and Mr Bhurji bled to death at the side of the road in Ilford, east London, as Gordon drove away in the Mercedes.

The police investigation quickly identified Gordon and Jae’don Fearon as the suspects but it was not until July 2013 that they had gathered enough evidence to charge the pair with murder.

In April 2014 – eleven years after his father was murdered – Jae’don was convicted of the lesser charge of manslaughter by the jury, reflecting his role as the ‘backup’ rather than the killer.

Having learned of Jae’don’s background during the case, the judge sentencing him said: ‘You know well the devastating effects of losing a loved one at the hands of a violent criminal.’

Jae’don was jailed for 13 years.