On home leave from prison where he was serving eight years for 16 shop robberies, 24-year-old Ian Kay decided to try his luck again. Instead of returning to jail at the end of his leave, he absconded and began another series of robberies.
On NOVEMBER 3rd, 1994, he went to Woolworth’s in Teddington, Middlesex, and made a grab for the cash in a till. John Penfold, a young trainee manager, sprang forward to stop him, only to be stabbed in the chest and die later in hospital.
Kay escaped with £165 and spent the night with his girlfriend, but the police soon caught up with him. Mr. Penfold was “fair game and a necessary hazard in a robbery,” he told the detectives who questioned him.
Convicted of murder on July 20th, 1995, Kay was jailed for life with a recommendation that he serve a minimum of 22 years. Psychiatrists had testified that he was obsessed by violent fantasies and the occult, and he was later found insane and transferred to Broadmoor.