A Breaking Dangerous copycat killer who disposed of his sufferer’s physique by dousing him in acid had additionally plotted to kidnap the daughter of a ‘well-known vogue tycoon’, a court docket has heard.
George Knights was at the moment jailed for all times with a minimal of 23 years for the homicide of dad-of-five Stephen Chapman.
The 19-year-old advised a court docket he took inspiration from the US crime collection after plunging his personal father’s Royal Marine commando dagger 16 centimetres into Mr Chapman’s cranium.
At court docket it was additionally revealed that the Knights had detailed notes of a sinister plan to kidnap ‘the daughter of a tycoon’ and maintain them for ransom.
Lists together with names, addresses and cellphone numbers of his supposed sufferer and her household had been discovered on his arrest, along with a police uniform.
Breaking Dangerous copycat killer George Knights (pictured), 19, has been jailed for all times with a minimal time period of 23 years for the homicide of Stephen Chapman
Prosecutor Caroline Carberry QC advised Maidstone Crown Court docket that the kidnapping and ransom plot was ‘no idle fantasy’, and supplied assist that Knights poses a excessive threat of hazard to the general public.
{The teenager} was simply 18 when he plunged his dad’s Royal Marine commando dagger 16cm-deep into Mr Chapman’s cranium earlier than stealing a neighbour’s plastic wheelie bin through which to dump and douse the physique in six bottles of excessive focus drain cleaner.
Knights himself advised a jury he had been impressed by the ugly episode from season one of many award-winning Netflix collection, and had a prepared provide of acid at hand from his personal amphetamine-producing enterprise.
The bodybuilder and cagefighting fan had by no means been in bother with the police when he fatally stabbed 38-year-old Mr Chapman on October 23, 2020.
However Ms Carberry stated there was ‘substantial proof of very worrying behaviour’ in his background which had not been heard by the jury at his four-week trial final yr.
Knights plunged his dad’s Royal Marine commando dagger 16cm-deep into Mr Chapman’s (pictured) cranium earlier than stealing a neighbour’s plastic wheelie bin through which to dump and douse the physique in six bottles of excessive focus drain cleaner
Detailing the kidnap plot and different threats of violence found by detectives, she advised the court docket: ‘Notes he had written to himself the place he spoke of desirous to knock somebody out, the usage of insulin to take action, making a Taser, organising a monitoring machine and buying a police uniform fancy costume costume, which was present in his house on the time of his arrest.
‘Different notes included the plot to kidnap and maintain to ransom the daughter of a well known vogue tycoon. That was no idle fantasy as a result of he had taken time to trace that daughter, file names and addresses of her household and their actual cellphone numbers.
‘And from the assertion of his most up-to-date girlfriend, he had advised her all in regards to the plot in some nice element.
‘There was, after all, no proof that the plot came about however there was loads of proof to recommend clear preparation for a kidnap.
‘It actually had received to the planning levels and demonstrates he was severely contemplating utilizing violence in the direction of one other particular person, doubtlessly together with kidnap, the use insulin to incapacitate, the usage of restraint, gagging, menace and disguises.
‘It additionally demonstrates the hazard that he poses to the general public.’
Police had been capable of communicate to and alert his supposed sufferer, who has not been publically named.
The court docket heard Knights additionally had a propensity for carrying knives, and had spoken to a buddy the evening earlier than the brutal killing about desirous to ‘harm somebody and rob them’ of £2,500 – the precise quantity of cocaine Mr Chapman had agreed to promote {the teenager} once they organized to fulfill at Knights’s house in Rochester, Kent.
Knights, who took insulin as a part of his steroid-taking cycle, advised his pal he may use it to inject his sufferer as it might ‘trigger a coronary heart assault and kill with out leaving a hint’.
Ms Carberry stated it was the prosecution case the ‘uncontrolled’ teen, who had been utilizing steroids since he was 16, was ‘fixated on cash’ and that the killing of the 38-year-old, who was often called ‘Ginger’, was ‘homicide for achieve’.
At his trial, his life-style was described as ‘weird and stranger than fiction’, specializing in utilizing, making and promoting each prescription and unlawful medication.
At court docket it was additionally revealed that the Knights had detailed notes of a sinister plan to kidnap ‘the daughter of a tycoon’ and maintain them for ransom. Lists together with names, addresses and cellphone numbers of his supposed sufferer and her household had been discovered on his arrest, along with a police uniform
He even used the identify of Breaking Dangerous’s lead character ‘Walter White’ – who himself made crystal methamphetamine – as a DVLA on-line account password reminder.
The jury additionally heard that having murdered forklift driver Mr Chapman, Knights left the acid-soaked physique head-first within the bin within the conservatory at his house in Delce Street to exit partying with associates.
He not solely filmed himself bingeing on medication and alcohol – boasting he would play the footage to his ‘new associates in jail’ – but additionally briefly returned house to take weird images of Mr Chapman together with his ft holding the bin lid ajar.
The badly-decomposing physique was discovered two days later, nonetheless with the double-edged navy dagger in his head, after his determined household had damaged into Knights’s house.
Throughout their makes an attempt to seek out him, {the teenager} had repeatedly lied to each police and Mr Chapman’s pregnant girlfriend about his ‘disappearance’.
Knights, who has a dagger entwined with a snake tattooed on his neck, had denied murdering Mr Chapman however was unanimously convicted in June.
Sentencing was adjourned for psychiatric and probation reviews after Decide Philip Statman described the killing of Mr Chapman and subsequent concealment and degradation of his physique to be ‘extraordinarily disturbing’.
Knights, a eager bodybuilder and cage preventing fan who had a dagger entwined with a snake tattooed on his neck (pictured) simply days earlier than the killing, denied murdering Mr Chapman on October 23 final yr
However the decide was advised Knights, now 19 and going through a life sentence, nonetheless maintains he acted in self-defence.
Referring to the findings of the reviews, Ms Carberry stated he had proven little regret and the present threat of ‘bodily hurt leading to deadly penalties, was excessive.
She added that the psychiatrist had discovered no proof of any psychological sickness or dysfunction aside from anxiousness.
‘He concluded George Knights supplied a rehearsed and calculated account of occasions with little emotional involvement,’ the prosecutor stated.
‘He expressed some regret however continued to minimise his function and justify his actions and demonstrated an incapacity to know the severity of his offending.
‘In his evaluation, George Knights is a harmful offender.’
The court docket heard that inside minutes of assembly that evening, Knights had fatally stabbed Mr Chapman in what was a premeditated plan to ‘rob, harm or kill’.
On the time, {the teenager} was stated to be main a ‘weird, uncontrolled existence’ targeted on utilizing, producing and promoting steroids, prescription remedy and his personal self-made amphetamines labelled as a ‘Superhuman Labs’ product.
On arrest, Knights examined constructive for a staggering 13 medication, together with ecstasy, amphetamine, cocaine, Zanax, diazepam, and a cocktail of steroids.
Ms Carberry advised the jury: ‘George Knights’s behaviour all through 2020 was stranger than fiction.
‘This was a younger man who inhabited a universe the place he had arrange his personal amphetamine manufacturing at house, the place a plan to harm, to rob and to kill got here worryingly very simply to him. This was no fantasy world.
‘George Knights was residing a life the place his main focus was on taking medication, making medication and promoting medication. He additionally had an unhealthy fascination with knives.
‘The theft of Stephen Chapman was for medication and in the middle of that he killed Mr Chapman.
‘This was simply a part of the very weird existence George Knights had carved out for himself at the moment.’
Giving proof, Knights, who left faculty earlier than taking his GCSEs however spoke of desirous to change into a ‘self-employed shares and shares dealer’, stated he believed the one approach he may ‘eliminate’ Mr Chapman’s physique was to repeat the notorious Breaking Dangerous episode.
He advised the jury: ‘I watched Breaking Dangerous and in my insanity at that time I believed that the one approach I may eliminate him was to do what they did in that movie. It was the one factor I may consider.
‘I appeared up on my laptop what acid it was and it was sulphuric acid, which is what I had utilized in an try and make amphetamine, and what sort of plastic you need to put it in.
‘The wheelie bin was the proper plastic. I received it from down the street…I introduced it again to the home and put it within the conservatory.
‘I put it on its facet…Then I pushed and pulled Ginger into the wheelie bin. Whereas I used to be doing that his footwear got here off.
‘Clearly I wasn’t considering straight in any respect. I did not put a gasoline masks on or something like that. I received acid which was already in the home and poured it on high within the bin till I could not breathe anymore.
‘Then I shut the conservatory doorways and I left…..I should not have completed what I did however I wasn’t considering rationally at that cut-off date.’
The court docket heard that simply hours earlier than the homicide Knights had written an inventory headed ‘Knife’ and together with objects akin to ‘Superglue’, ‘masks’ and ‘wipes’.
Mr Chapman was stated to have been ‘helpless in defending himself in opposition to a really sturdy younger man armed with a deadly weapon’.
Jurors had been additionally advised that his acid-doused physique posed such a public security threat that firefighters had been wanted to move him, nonetheless within the bin, to the mortuary at close by Medway Maritime Hospital.
Moreover, the autopsy examination couldn’t be accomplished regardless of employees sporting full PPE clothes, together with heavy-duty gloves, a respirator and gasoline masks.
In a tragic accident, Mr Chapman’s girlfriend Rebecca Chief gave delivery to their third little one – his fifth – on the primary day of Knights’s trial.
In a sufferer affect assertion she wrote how her ‘world had been turned the wrong way up and her coronary heart torn into items’.
The court docket additionally heard that she had the added misery of getting to undergo the courts to have his identify placed on his daughter’s delivery certificates.
Mr Chapman’s sister Lisa Chapman spoke of the horror of discovering how his physique had been ‘folded in a garbage bin like a chunk of filth’ and desecrated.
His former accomplice Louise Prince wrote an announcement on behalf of their 14-year-old son, saying she would always remember the look on his face when she advised him he would by no means see the daddy he ‘worshipped’ once more.
She additionally advised Knights: ‘You’ve gotten torn his world aside. You’ve gotten damaged his coronary heart. You’ve gotten actually ruined his life. He won’t ever recover from this. It’s going to hang-out him endlessly. My candy boy is damaged.
‘You’ve gotten completed this to him and for that I’ll by no means forgive you. How does it really feel that his world has ended however yours nonetheless goes on.’
Jailing Knights for all times with a minimal time period of 23 years earlier than he might be launched on parole, Decide Statman stated his ‘callous’ efforts to eliminate Mr Chapman’s physique and his lies to household trying to find him had been of ‘acute concern’ as to only how harmful he was.
‘You had been masking up occasions successfully in a copycat method of the storyline within the TV collection, Breaking Dangerous,’ he advised {the teenager}.
‘You had been capable of make these concerted efforts in an effort to be certain that the physique was desecrated by your additional conduct which reveals an excessive aggravating characteristic on this case.
‘This callous strategy was not one thing which might be defined away by a point of hysteria or panic that you just had on the time.’