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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jul/02/academic-widow-inquest-killer-free-jeroen-ensink
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| Academic's widow asks inquest why his killer was armed and free | Academic's widow asks inquest why his killer was armed and free |
| (about 2 hours later) | |
| The widow of an academic stabbed to death by a stranger outside their home in north London has demanded to know why her husband’s attacker, who had a mental illness, was “armed and at liberty” after previous charges against him were dropped. | |
| Nadja Ensink-Teich sobbed as an inquest was told her husband shouted “help me, help me” as he was stabbed multiple times. | |
| Jeroen Ensink, 41, a water engineer and senior lecturer at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, was “stabbed by somebody he didn’t know when he was posting some cards announcing the arrival of his first baby”, the coroner, Mary Hassell, told an inquest jury at St Pancras coroner’s court. “He died in the street.” | Jeroen Ensink, 41, a water engineer and senior lecturer at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, was “stabbed by somebody he didn’t know when he was posting some cards announcing the arrival of his first baby”, the coroner, Mary Hassell, told an inquest jury at St Pancras coroner’s court. “He died in the street.” |
| Ensink, who died on 29 December 2015, had been stabbed multiple times in the chest and thigh. He had defensive wounds on his hands where he had tried to wrest the blade from his attacker, the jury heard. | Ensink, who died on 29 December 2015, had been stabbed multiple times in the chest and thigh. He had defensive wounds on his hands where he had tried to wrest the blade from his attacker, the jury heard. |
| Femi Nandap, then 23, a Nigerian student who had a severe psychotic illness, was convicted of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and in October 2016 he was sentenced to an indefinite hospital order in Broadmoor. | |
| On the day of the killing, Maria Hegarty, a special police constable who lived near Ensink and his wife, heard a male voice shouting “help me, help me”. She ran out and saw one man motionless on the ground and another standing over him holding a large kitchen knife, “covered in blood”, she said in a statement to the inquest. | On the day of the killing, Maria Hegarty, a special police constable who lived near Ensink and his wife, heard a male voice shouting “help me, help me”. She ran out and saw one man motionless on the ground and another standing over him holding a large kitchen knife, “covered in blood”, she said in a statement to the inquest. |
| “I shouted: ‘Police, police, get away from him.’” The man with the knife seemed calm, Hegarty said. The man on the floor was making gurgling noises “and wasn’t breathing properly”. Nandap, still holding the knife, walked away, then back again, very calmly. | |
| “He said: ‘Leave him. He’s dead anyway,’” her statement said. Hegarty started chest compressions, but Nandap said to her: “He’s dead now, he’s dead.” | |
| Nandap was arrested nearby by police. | Nandap was arrested nearby by police. |
| The jury was told he had been arrested for possessing an offensive weapon and assaulting a police officer seven months previously, and the Crown Prosecution Service had later dropped the charges. | The jury was told he had been arrested for possessing an offensive weapon and assaulting a police officer seven months previously, and the Crown Prosecution Service had later dropped the charges. |
| It followed an incident in Belsize Park, north London, when witnesses reported him with a knife, acting strangely in the street, and shimmying up a drainpipe into a flat. | It followed an incident in Belsize Park, north London, when witnesses reported him with a knife, acting strangely in the street, and shimmying up a drainpipe into a flat. |
| Ensink-Teich had posed a series of questions to the inquest, the coroner said. Among them, she asked: “How could he be armed with a knife and be at liberty on the day he killed my husband?” | Ensink-Teich had posed a series of questions to the inquest, the coroner said. Among them, she asked: “How could he be armed with a knife and be at liberty on the day he killed my husband?” |
| She hoped for answers to questions including how this had happened “without any state agency” doing anything, the jury was told. | She hoped for answers to questions including how this had happened “without any state agency” doing anything, the jury was told. |
| Nandap, whose sister is a lawyer and whose late father was a lawyer in Nigeria and a lieutenant colonel in the Nigerian army, had studied in Boston in the US before moving to London, the jury heard. | Nandap, whose sister is a lawyer and whose late father was a lawyer in Nigeria and a lieutenant colonel in the Nigerian army, had studied in Boston in the US before moving to London, the jury heard. |
| Nandap regularly smoked cannabis and believed he was a messiah and “on the brink of the ultimate truth”, the inquest heard. He had dropped out of his course at Soas University of London. He had not received treatment for mental illness in the UK. | |
| The day after his arrest in May 2015, his family booked him on a plane to Nigeria. He was said to have received mental health treatment at a clinic there before returning to the UK in October 2015, the inquest heard. | The day after his arrest in May 2015, his family booked him on a plane to Nigeria. He was said to have received mental health treatment at a clinic there before returning to the UK in October 2015, the inquest heard. |
| At his trial, Nandap was said to have been diagnosed with a severe psychotic illness and was said to be having auditory hallucinations and paranoid delusions, the jury was told. | |
| The coroner told the jury of 10: “You are bound to have enormous sympathy for Dr Ensink and his family, but you must not come to conclusions based on sympathy. Your duty is to the truth. And that is paramount here.” | The coroner told the jury of 10: “You are bound to have enormous sympathy for Dr Ensink and his family, but you must not come to conclusions based on sympathy. Your duty is to the truth. And that is paramount here.” |
| Ensink, from Zwolle in the Netherlands, was killed 11 days after the birth of his daughter, Fleur. | Ensink, from Zwolle in the Netherlands, was killed 11 days after the birth of his daughter, Fleur. |
| Seven months before he killed Ensink, several witnesses called 999 to report Nandap for acting strangely in the street and armed with a large knife. He was arrested at his sister’s flat in Belsize Park by police following a violent scuffle with officers. A knife with a 19cm blade was found on the living room windowsill, the jury heard. | |
| Charges of possessing an offensive weapon and assaulting an officer were dropped by the CPS for lack of evidence six days before Nandap killed Ensink in December 2015. | |
| Police officers admitted that during that first incident, in May 2015, they should have created a Merlin report, which is used by police to identify vulnerable people and those with mental health issues and highlight them to other agencies. | |
| During that May arrest Nandap was shouting: “They are coming to get me, they are going to kill me.” He was muttering incoherently, had punched police officers, and tried to bite the nose of the arresting officer PC Adam Wellings, succeeding in biting the officer’s thumb. | |
| Wellings told the inquest he did not initially identify this behaviour as mental illness, and did not create a Merlin report. The coroner asked: “Do you think you should have created a Merlin report?” Wellings replied: “With hindsight, yes.” | |
| He said it “didn’t scream out at me that he had mental health issues”. It was only later he learned Nandap’s sister had voiced her concerns over his mental health. He said he liked to believe, though could not remember, that he would have mentioned this fact to the custody sergeant. | |
| Wellings said he was “a bit confused” and “disappointed” when he learned the CPS had dropped the May charges against Nandap. The CPS later wrote to him saying a review had ruled the decision to drop charges was “incorrect”, Wellings said. | |
| PC Stephen McDonagh, another arresting officer who booked Nandap in with the custody sergeant in May 2015, said of the arrest: “I had thought he may have been suffering a mental health crisis.” But after he was controlled, he seemed more calm and rational. Asked by the coroner if he had passed his concern on to the custody sergeant, he replied: “I am sure that I would have, but specifically I can’t remember.” | |
| He said he had not created a Merlin report because at the time he did not think it necessary. “I see, with hindsight, I think we should have created a Merlin report,” he said. | |
| The inquest continues and is due to last for three weeks. | |
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