A man who knifed his neighbour 27 times after subjecting him to years of threats and abuse has been found guilty of murder. Can Arslan, 52, lay in wait for father-of-three Matthew Boorman and attacked the 43-year-old as he walked towards his front door after returning from work on the afternoon of October 5 last year.
The killing was the culmination of 12 years' of threats from Arslan against his neighbours in Walton Cardiff, near Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, many of whom had installed expensive security systems, Bristol Crown Court heard. Mr Boorman’s wife Sarah suffered a deep wound to her leg as she tried to pull the defendant off her husband.
The attacker then forced his way into the home of Peter Marsden and knifed him eight times. The murder and subsequent threats and attacks were caught in graphic detail on the neighbourhood’s many CCTV and doorbell cameras installed by anxious residents.
Arslan admitted the attempted murder of Mr Marsden, causing grievous bodily harm to Mrs Boorman, and a charge of affray. He denied murder.
Instead, he claimed the charge he should face for killing Mr Boorman was manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. On Tuesday, a jury unanimously convicted him of murder after a day of deliberations.
During the trial, the court heard that Arslan was not mentally ill or in the grip of psychosis. However he had been diagnosed with a personality disorder.
It manifested itself in extreme anger and aggression to perceived insults, making grandiose claims about himself and an exaggerated sense of his own importance. The prosecution said that, despite having a personality that lay outside of what is normal, Arslan was fully in control of himself and knew the difference between right and wrong.
The defence argued that Arslan’s personality disorder is in itself an abnormality of mental function and therefore provided a defence to murder. Trial judge Mrs Justice Cutts said she wanted a further psychiatric report prepared on Arslan before she would sentence him.
She told him: “I am not going to sentence you today. I am going to sentence you on June 9 when I will have an additional report on you.
“In the meantime you will remain in Broadmoor.” At the time of the killing, Arslan was the subject of an injunction prohibiting him from threatening or abusing his neighbours.
He had been served with a notice of eviction. Small rows over parking and a scratch to a car had escalated to the point where Arslan had repeatedly threatened to attack or kill those living near him.
In May, Mrs Boorman had made a statement to police setting out a summary of the threats they had received from the defendant. She said they were worried about being murdered, or that someone was going to be seriously hurt very soon.
Arslan made counter-allegations, accusing the Boormans of racially abusing him. The day before the attack, a police officer had telephoned Arslan about the complaint he had made.
During the call, Arslan verbally abused the officer. He also told the police officer that he would sort his neighbour out himself, adding “I will murder him”.
After his arrest, the defendant claimed to have taken an overdose of opiate-based medication including diazepam. However a hospital assessment found he was not on any kind of drug.
Medics found that he was alert and had no psychotic symptoms. While in hospital, Arslan was interviewed by police and made comments about stabbing his neighbours.
Arslan also referred to his impending eviction and his life being ruined. At 7.33pm on the night of the murder, he mentioned hearing voices telling him to kill, saying it was the voice of his childhood teddy bear.
It was the first time he had ever made mention of voices and a forensic psychiatrist said he was sceptical about the claim. Dr John Sandford told the jury that people suffering a psychotic episode or prolonged mental illness will tend to have a “package” of symptoms, including paranoid delusion and auditory and visual hallucinations.
He added: “When you get a voice on its own you are always very sceptical. But when you get a voice on its own after a serious offence you are even more sceptical.”
In a second police interview, Arslan claimed not to remember the killing or the attacks on Mrs Boorman and Mr Marsden. But in an assessment with Dr Sandford, he claimed he had no memory of the event but also that he had acted reasonably by killing Mr Boorman.
Dr Sandford said: “There is nothing to suggest that this man is mentally ill or disordered in some way; he is doing a series of purposeful acts that are goal-directed.”
