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| Mentally ill Newport ex cabbie stabs friend to death. http://www.taxi-driver.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7578 |
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| Author: | JD [ Tue Dec 25, 2007 4:21 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Mentally ill Newport ex cabbie stabs friend to death. |
This is Gwent December 21, 2007 Friday Killer who knifed his friend South Wales Argus A MENTALLY ill man who stabbed a friend to death in a Newport road was detained indefinitely in a secure hospital yesterday. TONY SICLUNA reports. A GRIEVING father faced the man who killed his son across a courtroom yesterday. Bryn Fortey read out a moving victim impact statement at Cardiff crown court after Kevin Price, 43, of Stockton close, Newport, admitted the manslaughter of Mr Fortey's son James, 44, on the basis of diminished responsibility. Former taxi driver Price had denied a charge of murder. Judge Nicholas Cooke told Price: "You were and are a dangerous schizophrenic." He ordered him to be detained indefinitely in a secure mental hospital and not to be released with the specific orders of the Secretary of State. "Whether it will ever be safe to release you I can't say," said the judge. "No sentence I can pass will reduce the grief and anger this criminal act has caused." And he told Price: "You took the life of an innocent man and I'm satisfied you planned to kill him." Price killed Mr Fortey at 1pm on August 4 after pulling him from a ladder where he had been working as a painter and decorator. James Fortey was stabbed five times and died within minutes from wounds to his heart and lungs, said prosecutor Patrick Harrington, QC. Bryn Fortey, said in the victim impact statement that the family are inconsolable. He said: " I would like to quote from an unfinished letter found among my son's belongings. He wrote 'I've still got plans, I've still got goals. Just as soon as I get my teeth seen to, I'll be up and running." Turning to Price, Mr Fortey said "Such hopes were crushed by a coward with a knife." Mr Harrington said that Mr Fortey had been working on a house in Caerleon Road at the time of the killing. Price approached him, pulled him from the ladder, produced a knife and stabbed him. Emergency services arrived at the scene of the killing very swiftly, said Mr Harrington, and found Mr Fortey slumped against a wall surrounded by blood. Mr Fortey died of his injuries. Price drove home, informed his parents what he had done and asked for the police to be called. He disposed of the knife but later showed the police where it was. He later told officers that he had had a long history of psychiatric problems and added that he was solely responsible for the killing. At his home, Price told his father: "I'm sorry Dad, I've done him, I've stabbed him. I'm sorry for you and Mam." His father told him he was going to spend years behind bars and Price replied: "I've been in a prison for four years." James Fortey, said Mr Harrington, was born in Newport and had a good upbringing. He was a keen musician, an accomplished guitarist. A single man, he was a heroin user since the early 1990's and had sought help and never turned to crime to fund his habit. He and Price had been friends since they were 16 or 17 and had once been taxi drivers together. Price was brought up in the Newport area and as a teenager was a boxer. He used cannabis, the court heard. Mr Harrington said that Price had reported allegedly seeing Mr Fortey injecting heroin in Mr Fortey's sister's house. From then on Price's behaviour became bizarre and he thought he was being persecuted. He behaved unusually, would lock himself in his bedroom and was once hospitalised because it was thought he had taken an overdose. In a statement Price said he had stopped taking his medication for his mental condition, was sorry for what had happened and for wrecking everyone's lives. Price's counsel Paul Lewis, QC, said of Price and Mr Fortey: "They had had a long lasting friendship." Price, he said, had developed false beliefs about Mr Fortey. The court heard Price suffered depression with psychotic features. Mr Lewis said: "The system might not have served the defendant as well as it might have." He added: "He is very anxious and is very sorry for his actions." An enquiry is to be carried out into the system of mental health care Price received for four years. ______________________ |
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