‘Evil’ teen tortured and killed doctor in city park
A GIRL of 16 who loved horses and lived in a quiet commuter village took part in the torture and killing of a psychiatrist, it can be revealed.
Dionne Timms-Williams, now 17, walked through a dark city centre with two convicted criminals before they targeted Dr Gary Jenkins, 54, and left him fatally injured after a brutal 15-minute attack.
She then calmly turned down an offer from her company secretary mother to pick her up, saying she was ‘OK thanks’.
A judge yesterday said the teenager could be identified after the trio were convicted of murder. Former neighbours told of their shock at how the once-quiet schoolgirl had turned into a callous killer.
Father-of-two Dr Jenkins was attacked in the shadow of Cardiff Castle. A court heard the bisexual doctor – who had split from his wife – had gone to Bute Park, Cardiff, in the early hours looking to meet ‘like-minded men’.
The prosecution’s claim his ‘sexual predilections’ had been his ‘undoing’ sparked furious allegations of ‘victim-blaming’, resulting in an apology from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
Timms-Williams lived with her mother Lisa Timms, 43, in the Vale of Glamorgan village of Creigiau.
The killing on July 20 last year was described as ‘homophobic’ – even though the teenager was known to have experimented with a same-sex relationship herself.
‘We thought she was gay so this makes no sense,’ a former neighbour said yesterday. ‘Before lockdown she was an ordinary young girl – now she has killed someone in the most horrible of ways. Her family will be horrified.’
Timms-Williams is believed not to have known her co-defendants – Jason Edwards, 25, and Lee Strickland, 36 – before that night.
After accepting cider from them, she was seen going to the park, with a recording picking up her comment: ‘If we’re going to stay in f ****** Bute Park, can we at least go and steal?’
Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court heard she was seen laughing as she punched and kicked Dr Jenkins, with a horrified witness describing her as ‘f ****** evil’ and ‘sadistic’.
CCTV cameras recorded Timms-Williams demanding ‘Do it!’ and ‘Money!’ while calling Dr Jenkins a ‘f ****** pig’. Dr Jenkins pleaded for his life, begging ‘Please, stop’.
After the attack, Timms-Williams said: ‘Yeah, I needed that.’
Prosecutor Dafydd Enoch, QC, told jurors the teenager was no ‘wilting flower caught up in something’, but was ‘loud and confident’ and ‘laughing during the attack’. He described the fatal attack as ‘torture, pure and simple’.
Dr Jenkins died of an ‘unsurvivable brain injury’ 16 days later.
Timms-Williams told police she had to join the attack because she was ‘scared for her life’. Edwards, Strickland and Timms-Williams pleaded guilty to manslaughter, robbery and assault. They were found guilty of murder after a trial and will be sentenced next month.
After the trial, the CPS apologised for Mr Enoch’s ‘inappropriate and insensitive remarks’.
The barrister told jurors respected Dr Jenkins had ‘rendered himself hopelessly vulnerable’ by engaging in ‘risky’ activity.
Welsh education minister Jeremy Miles tweeted later: ‘He was not “undone” by his “sexual proclivities”. He was brutally attacked and died.
‘We have a long way to go.’
‘Her family will be horrified’