Widow of stabbed father hits out at police for ‘lax attitude’ to knife crime
THE widow of an academic stabbed to death by a psychotic stranger blasted police yesterday after an inquest jury condemned a string of failings.
Dr Jeroen Ensink, 41, was killed by Timchang Nandap, 25, yards from his home as he posted cards announcing his daughter’s birth days earlier.
Student Nandap, who had a history of mental illness, was in bare feet when he approached Dr Ensink. The academic shouted ‘No! Not a knife!’ as he was chased by the killer around a parked car before falling to the ground.
Dr Ensink’s widow Nadja Ensink-Teich accused police of ‘missing opportunities’ to prevent the killing and of having a ‘lax attitude’ to knife crime.
Just six days before the killing, prosecutors had dropped charges against Nandap of possessing kitchen knives and assaulting a police officer. Gerallt Evans, of the Crown Prosecution Service, told the inquest: ‘That decision was incorrect.’
The jury returned a verdict of unlawful killing yesterday at St Pancras Coroner’s Court, north London. They said in a statement: ‘Based on the evidence we have heard, there were a number of failings in the arrest, charging, and custody of the individual. As a result, he did not receive any mental health care, treatment or monitoring in the UK.
‘ It is possible these failings could have had an effect on Dr Ensink’s unlawful killing.’
Mrs Ensink-Teich broke down as the verdict was announced. She had to raise £ 25,000 via crowdfunding to pay for representation at the inquest after legal aid was refused. She said in a statement: ‘ This inquest has revealed numerous failings by the police in their treatment and handling of Nandap. It has been distressing and exhausting to sit through two weeks of evidence and to hear of the many missed opportunities that occurred between May and December 2015.
‘Taken alone, those failings may seem minor to some and may not be taken seriously by the police, but collectively they show a system that repeatedly failed and placed the public at foreseeable risk.
‘ Even more than that, the inquest has exposed a lack of professionalism on the part of the police and a lax attitude towards prosecuting knife crime.’
She added: ‘Two-and-a-half years later the Metropolitan Police has still not confirmed to me directly that they accept their failings or apologised for them.
‘It was only as a result of the inquest that they eventually decided to do their own investigation – and that decision, which came so late in the day, caused a further eight-month delay in the inquest taking place. This has only served to prolong our agony.’
Nandap, of Woolwich, south-east London, was in a cannabis-induced state when he killed his victim in Islington, north London.
Dr Ensink died on December 29, 2015, after going out to post ‘baby cards’ to inform friends and family of the birth of his daughter Fleur.
The biologist and water engineer, originally from Zwolle in Holland, who worked at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, was pronounced dead at the scene at around 2.30pm.
Nandap only stopped stabbing the victim when he was approached by an off- duty special constable, Maria Hegarty, who had been in her house on the road.
She sprinted across the street and began chest compressions, but the killer loomed over her saying: ‘Leave him – he is dead.’ Nandap was tasered before being arrested.
Nigerian-born Nandap, who came to the UK to study economic development, was sentenced to an indefinite hospital order after admitting manslaughter in 2016.
Mrs Ensink-Teich said in her statement: ‘Not only was the love of my life taken from me, but with him also all our hopes and dreams.’