This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/sep/08/man-admits-killing-academic-jeroen-ensink-islington-doorstep-stabbing
The article has changed 8 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
Version 2 | Version 3 |
---|---|
Man admits killing academic in Islington doorstep stabbing | Man admits killing academic in Islington doorstep stabbing |
(about 1 hour later) | |
A man with a mental illness stabbed an academic to death in a random attack just five days after three serious charges, including a knife offence, had been dropped against him, it has emerged. | |
Timchang Nandap, 23, launched an attack on Dr Jeroen Ensink, 41, as Ensink went out to post cards to family and friends announcing the birth of his daughter, Fleur. | |
Ensink, a lecturer and water engineer originally from the Netherlands, who worked at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, was yards from his Islington home in north London on 29 December 29 when he was attacked. | |
Nandap, who uses the name first name Femi, pleaded guilty to manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility in a brief appearance at the Old Bailey via videolink from Broadmoor high-security hospital on Thursday. | |
At an earlier hearing, it can now be reported, Judge Charles Wide, now retired, said: “I have no idea what the circumstances were. I can see there may be some public concern about that.” | |
Nandap, of Woolwich, south-east London, had also breached his earlier bail conditions by not returning from a trip to Nigeria on the agreed date and the judge questioned why he was not also prosecuted for that. He said: “There may be serious public concern for this: the bail [offence] as well as the discontinued offences.” | |
The charges against him were dropped at magistrates court on Christmas Eve 2015. Court records show Nandap was at Highbury Corner magistrates’ court on 12 October that year, accused of possession of a knife and assaulting a police officer. It was alleged he was found carrying two kitchen knives in Edmonton, north London on 22 May 2015, and that he assaulted a police constable the same day. | |
Ensink’s daughter was born just eleven days before the December attack, and his wife, Nadja, was at home with their new-born daughter awaiting his return from posting the cards. When he failed to arrive, she went outside to find police had cordoned off the street and the cards her husband had been carrying strewn on the pavement spattered with blood. Ensink was pronounced dead at the scene shortly after 1.50pm. | |
Accepting Nandap’s guilty plea to manslaughter, prosecutor Duncan Atkinson QC said: “There has been extensive psychiatric consideration in this case and the consensus of opinion is clear, cogent and unanimous. In that clear and unanimous psychiatric opinion there was an abnormality of mental function at that time that diminished his responsibility.” | |
The decision not to pursue the murder charge, he said, was taken in communication with Ensink’s family, who were not present for the hearing. | |
The recorder of London, Nicholas Hilliard QC, adjourned the case until 10 October 10 for sentencing. | |
Ensink was a renowned water engineer and dedicated humanitarian who was committed to improving access to water and sanitation in deprived areas. | |
At the time of the killing, professor Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: “Dr Ensink joined the school almost a decade ago and at the time of his death he was leading a large study in the Democratic Republic of Congo to understand how improvements in water supply could control and prevent cholera outbreaks.” A memorial fund set up after his killing has raised more than £20,000. | |
DCI Jamie Piscopo of the Metropolitan police’s homicide and major crime command said: “Dr Jeroen Ensink left his home that lunchtime to post a number of cards to friends and family to inform them of the recent birth of his daughter. What should have been the happiest time of Jeroen’s life was ended by the violent and unprovoked actions of Nandap. Jeroen had only walked a short distance when he was approached by Nandap, who launched into a vicious attack with a knife. He did not stand a chance, and now, sadly, his daughter will grow up without her father in her life.” | |