‘Why was killer free to stab my husband?’

THE widow of a Dutch academic who was stabbed to death by a psychotic stranger has demanded to know why prosecutors dropped previous knife charges that left his attacker free to kill.

Femi Nandap, a cannabis user, killed Dr Jeroen Ensink as he left his London flat to post cards announcing the birth of his daughter in December 2015.

Days earlier, the Crown Prosecution Service had dropped charges against Nandap, despite the fact he had launched a violent attack on a police officer.

On the first day of an inquest into Dr Ensink’s death, Nadja Ensink-teich, his widow, demanded to know why the CPS failed to prosecute. In a statement read to St Pancras Coroner’s Court, she asked: “How can it be Mr Nandap, apparently so mentally unwell, was armed with a knife and was at liberty on the day he killed my husband?”

Pc Adam Wellings had arrested Nandap six months before the fatal attack. In a statement on how he had responded to a call of members of the public being intimidated by a man with a knife, he said Nandap had snatched his Taser, punched him and tried to bite his nose.

The jury heard Nandap had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, having suffered hallucinations and believing he was a “messiah”.

Mrs Ensink-teich wept when the court was told how Maria Hegarty, an off-duty special constable, heard cries of “help me, help me” from her home before finding the killer standing over Dr Ensink. Nandap admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility at the Old Bailey and in October 2016 was sentenced to an indefinite hospital order at Broadmoor.

Dr Ensink was working on a study into improving water supplies in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the inquest heard. The inquest is set to last three weeks.