A MAN was stabbed around 20 times in a ‘frenzied and sustained attack’ after one of his housemates had frogmarched him into an alleyway.
And less than a minute after Ali Mashru had been seen walking back out of the alleyway, his victim was found lying in a pool of blood by someone who immediately called an ambulance.
Despite the overwhelming evidence, Mashru denied being responsible for the attack – claiming someone else must have gone into the alleyway from the other end after he had left.
But a jury at Warwick Crown Court unanimously agreed he was the attacker.
Although they cleared Mashru (26) of St Georges Road, Lower Stoke, Coventry, of attempted murder, they convicted him of wounding his victim with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
And as Mashru protested from the dock that he was wrong, Judge Andrew Lockhart QC remanded him in custody for a report to be prepared on whether he poses on ongoing danger to the public.
Prosecutor Tim Harrington had told the jury it was a “frenzied and sustained attack.”
He added: “Using a knife, he stabbed him to the arm, to the body and to the head something like 20 times.”
And, although the jury rejected it, Mr Harrington argued: “Such was the ferocity of the attack, you can be sure he intended to kill him.”
Mr Arnold and Mashru lived at the same address in St Georges Road.
During the early evening on Friday June 15, Mr Arnold was seen on a CCTV camera leaving the house and going to the Nisa supermarket at the junction of St Georges Road and Humber Avenue.
Mashru was upset with Mr Arnold, who was inebriated, and followed him down the road before confronting him outside the store.
The confrontation boiled up into violence, and Mashru frogmarched Mr Arnold out of the view of another CCTV camera and into the narrow alleyway further down St Georges Road.
Playing the CCTV recording, Mr Harrington pointed out Mashru emerged from the alley a couple of minutes later, having left Mr Arnold for dead.
The man who called the ambulance went into the alley 57 seconds later. The CCTV showed there was no opportunity for anyone else to have stabbed Mr Arnold, said Harrington.
After the jury returned its verdicts, the court heard that at Southwark Crown Court in 2013 Mashru had been jailed for three years and nine months for his part in kidnapping a man and demanding money from his family.
Judge Lockhart said the sentencing ‘starting point’ for the stabbing of Mr Arnold was 12 years, with a range of 12 to 16 years.
As he adjourned the case for the report to be prepared, Mashru began protesting from the dock: “What you’re doing is wrong. You know that’s wrong. What you’re doing is treason. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself judge?”
Judge Lockhart left court to give Mashru’s barrister time to speak to him, but he continued to protest – and dock officers had to push him out of the dock after he was remanded in custody.
