Knife thug guilty of Knox murder

CRAZED knife fanatic Karl Bishop has been convicted today of the brutal murder of teenage Harry Potter actor Rob Knox.

Bishop, 22, armed himself with two kitchen knives to confront Rob and his friends outside the Metro bar in Sidcup, south east London, last May.

Bystanders saw his face “screwed up in rage” as he lashed out with the blades, stabbing his victims at least ten times in less than two minutes.

Rob, 18, had rushed outside to try to protect his younger brother Jamie after hearing Bishop had threatened him.

But he ended up being stabbed five times, once fatally in a main artery.

Brian Altman QC, prosecuting, said: “Unhappily, his courage and his sense of duty were to cost him his life.”

Rob’s life, full of promise, was brought to an end by a “habitual knife carrier” who thought of stabbing people as an “occupational hazard” and had previous convictions for knife crime, Mr Altman said.

The actor had completed filming on Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince, in which he played the part of Marcus Belby, just days before, and was looking forward to reprising the role in the next series.

His grieving father Colin told hundreds of mourners at his funeral, including Harry Potter star Rupert Grint, that he had been “living the dream”.

Bishop, of Sidcup, was also convicted of wounding Rob’s friend Dean Saunders, 23.

He was found not guilty of wounding another friend Tom Hopkins, 19.

The judge Mr Justice Bean gave the Old Bailey jury of three women and nine men a majority direction on three other wounding charges.

After the verdict was delivered, Rob’s parents burst into tears and were comforted by friends.

The court heard Bishop was furious the actor, a 6ft rugby player, had stood up to him a week earlier when he went to the bar aggressively demanding to know who had taken his phone and spoiling for a fight.

Knives

He came off worse on that occasion but made a chilling prediction: “I’m going to come back next week and someone’s going to die.”

When he did return as promised, he was refused entry and instead drunkenly harassed a teenage girl outside, trying to drag her off before ending up in a fresh confrontation with Rob and his friends.

Bishop was given a lift home by his own friends, later sending them a stream of obscene text messages for not coming to his aid during the fight and refusing to join his plan of revenge.

He went straight to a kitchen drawer, took out two knives, 11 and 12 inches long, and marched back to the bar, still bloodied from the earlier fight.

On his way back he came across Jamie Knox, 17, and his friends, threatening them with the blades before continuing on to the bar.

Rob, alerted to what had happened by a phone call, came out of the bar to confront Bishop just as he arrived.

The knifeman was soon surrounded by a semi-circle of youths and Rob had to be held back as Bishop goaded them, shouting: “Who’s going to make my f****** day?”

The prosecution alleged that Andrew Dormer, 17, tried to disarm him but was stabbed in the chest, while Nicky Jones, 20, was knifed in the hand and Charlie Grimley, 17, in the face and arm.

The jury is still deliberating on these three charges against Bishop.

At one point Bishop also walked up to Mr Saunders with what his victim described as an “evil grin” on his face and stabbed him in the neck, leaving him with permanent spinal damage.

Mr Hopkins, at the time a Southend United youth team player, helped bundle Bishop into a flowerbed and subdue him.

He said Bishop had “looked like a madman” as he shouted and waved his knives around.

Meanwhile another of Rob’s friends, 19-year-old Callum Turner, looked after the young actor as he stumbled away from the fracas, soaked in blood and repeating: “I’ve been stabbed.”

Mr Turner wept when he later recalled Rob “staring, blank-faced” as he lay dying.

His mother Sally was called to the scene and despite efforts to save him, he died later in hospital.

Bishop, cut and bruised from the melee, begged police to protect him from an angry crowd, winking and smiling at them as he was led away.

Later that evening, unrepentant, he came face to face with some of his victims in a nearby hospital and hurled a volley of abuse in which he threatened to rape their relatives.

He told a police officer to take him straight to Belmarsh prison, saying: “I’m going down anyway. I don’t mind, I get gym every day, meals, just take me there.”

His reaction to learning that Rob had died was “yeah, sweet”.

Mr Altman said: “This man was the aggressor and he was acting out of revenge. He had brought the whole thing upon himself quite deliberately.

“He wasn’t under attack - because he had the whip hand. He was the one armed with and using two knives.

“This man carries knives like others carry pens in their pockets, quite happily thinks little or nothing of stabbing others as if it were some occupational hazard.”

Feelings ran high during Bishop’s trial, with Rob’s parents and his friends who gave evidence at times breaking down in tears, and one prosecution witness launching an angry courtroom outburst against the man in the dock.

Tarik Ozresberoglu was warned to behave himself by Mr Justice Bean as he called the smirking defendant an “absolute clown” and told his lawyer Ian Bourne QC that he would “rather be a dustman” than defend such a man.