Schizophrenic stabbed antiques expert to death in Poundland after smoking the legal high ‘Spice’
Man stabbed as he shopped for balloons to celebrate wife's birthday
A SCHIZOPHRENIC man wielding a 20 inch knife killed a father as he shopped in the celebration isle for balloons for his wife's birthday.
Justin Skrebowski, an antiques expert, was left to die on the floor of the store in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in December last year in a "meaningless and mindless attack".
Mr Skrebowski was killed by 37-year-old Trevor Joyce who said: "If I had my way you would all be stabbed", as he left Poundland to rampage through the town.
The Old Bailey today heard on the day of the attack Joyce had been downing cider and smoking the cannabis substitute spice.
He appeared at the court by videolink and spoke only to confirm his name.
The court heard Joyce has "rage in his eyes" and shouted at an elderly couple: "Do you want me to cut your f***ing head off?"
Disturbing mobile phone footage captured an attack on another pensioner, Ron Wilkins, who was sat on a bench nearby.
He was left shaken with a cut on his thumb after Joyce threatened to run the knife across the elderly man's throat.
The amateur cameraman followed as Joyce marched through the streets brandishing a knife and large meat fork, and shouting at bystanders.
A police officer eventually tasered him and when he was arrested for murder, Joyce, who was first diagnosed with chronic schizophrenia in 2003, said: 'Yeah, I f***ing did bruv. He f***ing deserved it. Shouldn't have f***ed with me."
He used crack cocaine, heroine and the legal high known as Spice, which made his condition worse and made him aggressive.
Joyce had told doctors he wanted to stab his neighbour in October last year and was known to have gone to her door at least twice holding a knife.
On 4 December, days before the killing, he told a nurse he had picked up a knife in Poundland and cut his thumb.
Joyce was charged with murder but prosecutors accepted a plea to the lesser charge of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility at Oxford Crown Court last month.
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He also pleaded guilty to two counts of making threats to kill, one count of causing actual bodily harm and one count of making threats with offensive weapons.
Prints dealer Mr Skrebowski had a shop in Portobello Road before relocating to the Oxford area.
His wife, Gulsen Alkan, read out a statement in court about the father of her four-year-old twins.
She said: "On my birthday, Justin went to Poundland to buy balloons for our two children and he didn't come back.
"He was killed at random by a man who grabbed a knife from a shelf in the shop.
"He was taken away from us in a random, meaningless and mindless attack that could have been prevented."
Mr Skrebowski's brother Adrian said: "On the evening of 7 December a part of our life was ripped away as I learned my brother was dead as the result of a mindless attack of violence earlier that day."
Joyce, of Franklyn Close, Abingdon, was due to be sentenced on Monday.
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