Credit: South Wales Police
The heir to a £230 million pie company fortune was dropped off by his grandmother in a Porsche before he killed his best friend on Christmas Eve.
Dylan Thomas – the grandson of Sir Stanley Thomas, the Peter’s Pies founder – was found guilty at Cardiff Crown Court on Thursday of murdering William Bush.
In CCTV footage shown to the court, the 24-year-old was dropped off at a house in Llandaff, north of Cardiff, by his grandmother, Sharon Burton, from a white Porsche on the morning of Dec 24 2023.
He had told her that he needed to go to the house, which was owned by the family and shared by Mr Bush, to walk his dog.
Thomas then laid in wait for Mr Bush, his housemate and best friend from Christ College Brecon public school, before stabbing him 37 times in the chest and neck.
Thomas had armed himself with a large kitchen knife and a black lock knife or flick knife, having researched the anatomy of the neck online, the court heard.
A bloodied Mr Bush managed to escape the home but collapsed on the patio in front of shocked Christmas shoppers, who had heard “horror screams” from inside.
The court heard witnesses called 999 to help Mr Bush – but Thomas called the ambulance service for his own injuries.
Mrs Burton and police officers performed CPR before Mr Bush was rushed to hospital, and pronounced dead at 12.10pm.
Thomas told officers at the scene: “I killed him. He came at me and I stabbed him. He attacked me. It was self-defence.”
He was arrested on suspicion of murder. A post mortem examination recorded Mr Bush’s cause of death as multiple stab wounds to the neck and trunk.
In a week-long trial, Thomas denied murder but admitted manslaughter by diminished responsibility.
‘Beyond devastating’
After the verdict, Catrin, Mr Bush’s sister, said outside court that Thomas was “evil”. She said: “Will was innocently getting ready to return back to Brecon to spend Christmas with us all when the attack took place, and instead of Will arriving at our door for dinner on Christmas Eve, it was Dyfed Powys Police to deliver the beyond-devastating news.
“Dylan Thomas is an evil, manipulative liar. Throughout this process, we have seen no evidence of any remorse or taken responsibility for his actions that day. We can only hope that he will never be released back into the community,” she added.
The day before the attack, Thomas was seen calmly attending a family meal at a nearby pub in Miskin.
Orlando Pownall KC, defending, suggested in court the killing was triggered by a delusion of Thomas’s that Mr Bush was going to attack him and Dr Dilum Jayawickrama, a consultant psychiatrist, said Thomas’s family had missed signs that he was psychotic.
“If someone is psychotic they lose touch with reality, and that’s what’s happened here,” Mr Pownall added.
The jury also heard Thomas had been arrested for breaking into Buckingham Palace a few months before the attack on Mr Bush.
However, Greg Bull KC, prosecuting, told the court Thomas had shown “clear thinking” and the type of wounds suggested “an intention to kill”. He said Thomas’s motive was “one of the mysteries of this case”.
Sir Stanley Thomas, whose net worth was estimated to be £230 million in 2013, sat in court throughout the trial.
The jury unanimously found Thomas, who appeared via video link from Ashworth High Secure Hospital where he is being treated for schizophrenia, guilty of murder after the nine-day trial.
He will be sentenced on Dec 16.
EMEA Tribune is not involved in this news article, it is taken from our partners and or from the News Agencies. Copyright and Credit go to the News Agencies, email news@emeatribune.com Follow our WhatsApp verified Channel
