Homeless man is jailed for killing Irish waiter in 1983
A HOMELESS killer who confessed to beating an Irish waiter to death in London 38 years ago because he wanted to end his days in prison rather than on the streets was jailed for life yesterday.
Christopher Ainscough, who was 50 and gay, was found dead in his home in Kilburn, London, with fatal head injuries.
Anthony Kemp, 59, beat him to death with a marble ashtray, between December 2 and 5, 1983, but he was never caught.
That was until last year, when he admitted he had ‘bashed his f***ing brains in’.
The career criminal attacked the head waiter after he was invited back to his flat for drinks.
He wiped down the ashtray and door handle to remove his fingerprints and washed blood from his clothes after he left Mr Ainscough lying on the living room.
Kemp would never have been caught if he had not thrown stones at a police station window to get officers to listen to his confession.
He said: ‘I don’t give a f*** what happens to me, cos I ain’t got long to live… I’m not going to live on the f***ing streets, that’s a fact.
‘I’d rather the government f***ing look after me…
‘I’d rather do the last few years of my life in bang-up than sleep on the f***ing streets.’
Kemp said he knew he had killed him because he had ‘croaked that death rattle’, the court heard.
Police discovered the victim’s body in his sitting room after friends reported he had failed to appear for work. Mr Ainscough, originally from Dublin, had taken men he had just met to his flat for casual sexual encounters in the past but always respected their wishes if they refused to be intimate with him, the court heard.
Kemp told police he did not remember what Mr Ainscough had done to anger him, and denied the ‘charming’ man had made an advance towards him.
At London’s Old Bailey court, Kemp, of Thames Road, Chiswick, admitted murder. Jailing Kemp for life and ordering he serve at least 15-and-a-half years before he can be considered for parole, Judge Mark Dennis said: ‘This was a wholly unjustified and brutal killing which led to the death of a harmless and good-natured man who meant you no harm.
‘There can be no doubt that such a dreadful act of violence should have been on your conscience every day since you committed this crime.’
Kemp confessed to the murder at Chiswick Police Station at 4.20am on July 28 last year.
Prosecutor Gareth Patterson told the court: ‘He said he wanted to admit to something that he did 40 years ago in Cricklewood.
‘He said: “I murdered somebody” When asked: “What did you do?”, he replied: “I f***ing done his f***ing head in.”’
Later, he added: ‘It was just an argument and stuff and things got out of hand. I done his, I bashed his brains in.’ He said the victim was a stranger, he didn’t know his name and that it had happened in a block of flats. Kemp later retracted this confession and said the murderer was actually a man named Terrence Casey, who killed himself in 1989.
Mr Patterson continued: ‘The police found no evidence that he [Mr Casey] murdered Chris Ainscough and enquiries suggest he wasn’t even present in England in 1983, but was living in Ireland at the time of the murder.
‘When considering who to name as the real killer he deliberately chose a dead man, who of course could not dispute what the defendant was saying about him.
‘By his guilty plea, the defendant now accepts that what he said about Mr Casey being the killer was, of course, nonsense.
‘He didn’t have to cause distress to the family of a dead man by accusing him of murder.
A close friend of Mr Ainscough said: ‘He was kind, generous, caring and a family man.
‘He was charming and had the extraordinary ability to get on with anyone and everyone.
‘They took a very special person from us and went on living their life as if he didn’t matter at all. He had the life that Chris couldn’t.’
‘Dreadful act of violence’