Mass killer Harry Street dies in psychiatric hospital

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/dec/29/murderer-harry-street-dies-ashwoth-hospital

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A man who shot dead five people in 1978 has died while serving an indefinite sentence for firearms and explosives offences.

Harry Street was detained under the Mental Health Act in October after six guns, dozens of homemade bullets and a makeshift bomb were found at his home.

The 70-year-old, who is thought to have had a heart attack, was pronounced dead on Christmas Eve after being taken ill at the high-security Ashworth hospital on Merseyside.

Street, formerly known as Barry Williams, killed three of his neighbours in West Bromwich and a couple who ran a petrol station in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, on 26 October 1978.

He was later diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and sent to Broadmoor in 1979 after admitting to five counts of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

But he was freed subject to monitoring in 1995, moved to an address in Hall Green, Birmingham, in 2005, where he waged a campaign of harassment against his neighbours two years later.

West Midlands police arrested Street in October last year after a “veritable arsenal” of guns and bullets was found in a cupboard at his home.

Sentencing Street on 6 October this year, Mr Justice Blair ordered the pensioner to be detained in conditions of high security due to the nature of his previous offences and his ability to procure and modify weapons.

A spokesman for Ashworth hospital said: “A patient in long-term care at has been admitted to general hospital after becoming acutely physically unwell. He died in hospital at 9.49am on 24 December 2014.”