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Convicted burglar found guilty of murder after stabbing pensioner to death in Fulham home

Summary:

Joseph Griffiths was killed by 21-year-old Aaron De Silva.

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By SWLondoner staff

A burglar who had 31 previous convictions has been found guilty of murdering a pensioner in his Fulham home.

Joseph Griffiths, 73, was stabbed 22 times by Aaron De Silva, who broke into his home in Hazlebury Road in November 2012.

De Silva, 21, of Earls Court, plead guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, but the prosecution did not accept the plea.

Successive psychiatric reports found that De Silva was suffering no mental illness at the time of the killing.

Mr Griffiths’ wife Judith told the court that she found her husband lying motionless in a pool of blood outside his bedroom on the night of the attack.

Grandfather Mr Griffiths was a successful businessman who had run a mechanics in Fulham for nearly 20 years, and had lived in the home on Hazlebury Road for more than 50.

The Old Bailey was shown CCTV footage recorded in the hours after the killing, which showed De Silva at the hostel dancing while he played music on a computer.

De Silva told the jury he only had a sketchy memory of the killing, but that he had not intended to hurt anyone.

The court heard that De Silva walked to Fulham from his hostel in West Kensington, armed with a knife, with the intention of burgling.

He stole a pair of bolt cutters from a shed before using them to break into Mr Griffiths’s house.

He has spent every one of his last seven birthdays in detention, and will be sentenced on Friday.

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