Irish OAP’s killer jailed indefinitely
HOSPITAL ORDER AS FAMILY SLAM ‘ACT OF COWARDICE’
AN ex-prisoner has been locked up indefinitely for the ‘senseless’ killing of elderly Irishman Thomas O’Halloran in London — just five days after his release.
Lee Byer was psychotic when he stabbed 87-year-old Thomas in the neck and chest as he travelled in his mobility scooter in Greenford, west London, in August 2022.
Mr O’Halloran was originally from Ennistymon, Co Clare, but had lived in London for much of his life, and was a popular figure in his community there.
After killing Thomas, Byer later wrote repeatedly about a ‘Hunger Games’ scenario in which he was required to meet ‘contestants’ and then fight or attack, the Old Bailey court was told.
Five days before the killing, Byer, who had a string of convictions, was released from Wormwood Scrubs, having served a full 12-year sentence for robbery.
The 45-year-old, of no fixed address, denied murder but pleaded guilty to the lesser offence of manslaughter by diminished responsibility and having an offensive weapon.
The pleas were accepted after mental health reports found Byer was psychotic, hearing voices, suffering from paranoid delusions and paranoid schizophrenia.
Savage
In a televised sentencing yesterday, Judge Mark Lucraft handed Byer a hospital order with restrictions. The judge said it was a “senseless” and “savage” killing of a “muchloved” man with “no provocation and no rational motive”.
He noted concerns over Byer’s mental health were raised in 2020.
On behalf of the O’Halloran family, grandson Dennis Lintern condemned Byer for his ‘horrendous act of cowardice’. Mr Lintern described his grandfather as a ‘gentle, loving, man who spent his life working and helping everyone he could’.
He said: “He was minding his own business doing what he loved, playing his accordion to make people smile and enjoy his music which he had done for many years.” Mr O’Halloran used to busk to raise charity funds for Ukraine and on the afternoon of August 16, 2022, he was seen on CCTV footage waving from his mobility scooter as he headed home with his accordion and Ukraine collection box. Prosecutor Gareth Patterson said: “His path took him past this defendant, who was walking the streets in possession of a large knife.
“Mr O’Halloran in no way posed any kind of threat to anyone. Yet [he] was attacked and stabbed repeatedly by the defendant.”