A man who murdered a 14-year-old boy with a samurai sword as he walked to school in east London has been sentenced to life in prison.

Marcus Arduini Monzo, 37, nearly decapitated Daniel Anjorin during a 20-minute rampage in which he attacked five others in Hainault on 30 April last year.

Mr Justice Bennathan told Monzo on Friday that he would serve a minimum of 40 years in prison.

Including time he has already served in custody, it means he will be in prison for 38 years and 309 days before he is eligible for parole, at which point he would be at least 75 years old – though he may never be released.

Handing down the sentence, Mr Justice Bennathan said: “In Hainault, east London, just before 7am on 30 April last year, the weather was good, and the streets were starting to fill with people on their way to work and even a few children heading off early to school.

“Over the 20 minutes that followed, that peaceful, busy scene was devastated as members of the public were attacked, police officers were gravely injured, a couple were terrified in their own home and a clever, talented young boy was killed.

“You, Marcus, did all of that. Daniel was a clever boy, he was gifted musically and played a variety of sports well. His loss is devastating to his parents, his brother and sister and his grandparents

“I am very conscious that no sentence I can pass can even begin to temper Daniel’s family’s grief.”

Daniel’s father Dr Ebenezer Anjorin spoke outside the court alongside Daniel’s mother, Grace Anjorin, after Monzo’s sentencing.

He said: “This has been a painful and deeply traumatic chapter in our lives. No verdict or sentence can bring back our son, Daniel, who we loved so dearly.

“But we are grateful that justice has been served. Daniel was taken from us in a way that no family should ever have to endure.

“His life had so much potential ahead. He was gifted academically, was kind and had a generous spirit that touched everyone who knew him. We carry that light with us even in this dark time.”

The family thanked police, the prosecution team and “all those who worked tirelessly to seek the truth”.

Mr Anjorin added that the family would “honour Daniel’s memory not in the shadow of this tragedy, but through the love and happiness that he brought to us and all those who knew him”.

Earlier, in a victim impact statement read to the court, Dr Anjorin condemned Monzo’s “wicked” actions and said that he could not begin to describe the “pain and anguish” the family felt at losing Daniel.

Mr Anjorin said: “We will not see him get married or have children. All the normal things parents hope for their children. All these hopes and aspirations have been cruelly snatched away from us through the wicked actions of Marcus Monzo.

“It has been the worst nightmare experience of our lives. To have to go through the pain of losing a child in such a cruel and savage way. No family should have to go through this.”

Prosecutors said Monzo tried “to kill as many people as he could” while under the influence of cannabis after he skinned and deboned his pet cat Wizard.

Monzo, a Spanish-Brazilian national from Newham in east London, admitted two charges of possessing an offensive weapon relating to two swords, which he said he bought for display purposes.

He claimed he had no memory of carrying out the attacks and denied Daniel’s murder, along with four charges of attempted murder, wounding with intent, aggravated burglary and possession of a bladed article.

He was found guilty of Daniel’s murder and three charges of attempted murder at the Old Bailey on Wednesday.

Monzo was cleared of one count of attempted murder – instead found guilty of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm – and convicted of aggravated burglary and possession of a bladed article.

During the trial, the jury was shown CCTV footage from the morning of the attack, with audible screams in one clip as Monzo drove his grey Ford Transit van at speed into pedestrian Donato Iwule.

Mr Iwule told jurors: “I thought I was dying” and “I saw blood coming out of my neck”, after he was struck with a sword before running away.

Read more from Sky News:
Four arrested after aircraft vandalised at RAF base
Police identify seven suspects related to Post Office scandal

Witnesses described how Monzo was running around “like a maniac” and “looked a bit mad, like there was nothing there”.

Daniel, who had left home at around 7am wearing headphones and school sports clothes, suffered “a near-decapitation” when Monzo attacked him with the weapon from behind, prosecutor Tom Little KC told the jury.

PC Yasmin Mechem-Whitfield chased the armed attacker through alleyways before Monzo struck her three times with the 60cm blade using “extreme force”, the court heard.

He then entered a nearby house through the back door and walked upstairs before attacking sleeping couple Sindy Arias and Henry De Los Rios Polania, who he asked: “Do you believe in God?”

Mr Little said their lives were only spared because their four-year-old daughter, who was sleeping nearby, woke up and started to cry.

Monzo, who had been cornered by police, also struck Inspector Moloy Campbell once with the sword before he was finally disarmed and arrested after trying to climb onto a garage to escape.

A man seen “smiling” on CCTV after stabbing his wife to death as she pushed their seven-month-old baby in a pram has been found guilty of murder.

Habibur Masum, 26, launched the “ferocious” attack on 27-year-old Kulsuma Akter after tracing her to a refuge where she went to escape his “violence, jealousy and controlling behaviour”, a court heard.

She suffered more than 25 knife injuries after Masum found her through her phone location and confronted her in a street in Bradford, West Yorkshire, on 6 April last year.

After fleeing the scene, he got on a bus where CCTV footage showed him smiling, prosecutor Steve Wood KC told Bradford Crown Court.

He said the image “removed all possible doubt” about his intent and state of mind.

“There were no tears, there was no distress. Perhaps, members of the jury, the smile you can clearly see form as he gets on that bus is as a result of him thinking at that point he’s getting away. The smiling killer,” he told the court.

After a four-day manhunt, Masum was arrested 150 miles away in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, where he lived when the couple first came to the UK, having met and married in Bangladesh.

He had already pleaded guilty to manslaughter and possession of a knife but denied murder, claiming he had intended to kill himself in front of his wife but “totally lost control”.

On Friday, Masum was convicted of murder, alongside one count of assault, making threats to kill, and one charge of stalking. He was cleared of another charge of assault.

He had no visible reaction as the verdicts were read out. Judge Mr Justice Cotter told him he will be sentenced on 22 July, when the minimum term for his life sentence will be decided.

Told social worker husband ‘would kill her one day’

Mr Wood described Masum’s relationship with his wife as “abusive… characterised by his jealousy, possessiveness and controlling behaviour”.

After moving to Oldham, Greater Manchester, together in 2022, she left him – moving in first with her brother in July 2023, before being relocated to the Bradford refuge by social services in January 2024.

She left the relationship after he held a knife to her throat and threatened to kill her in response to a “completely innocuous” message she received from a male colleague in November 2023, the court was told.

Ms Atker told a social worker afterwards that she “believed that one day her husband would kill her”.

Masum denied the November incident and claimed his wife had fabricated a domestic violence case against him as a way to stay in the UK – as he wanted to return to Bangladesh.

He was subject to court bail conditions ordering him to keep away from her at the time of the murder.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) investigated both West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester Police’s prior contact with Ms Atker, saying in a statement on Friday that the probe concluded in December – but will not be made public so as not to prejudice the victim’s inquest.

3pm attack in front of onlookers

During the trial, Mr Wood told the jury Masum managed to track Ms Akter to Bradford and, days before the attack, tried to lure her into leaving the refuge by pretending to be from a GP’s surgery and offering her fake appointments.

She was walking with a friend and pushing her son in a pram at 3pm on the day she died when she was confronted by Masum, who she thought was in Spain.

CCTV showed Masum walking with Ms Akter until he stopped her, spun her and the pram around, and pulled a knife from his jacket.

“He tried to encourage Kulsuma back into the relationship,” West Yorkshire Police’s senior investigating officer Detective Chief Inspector Stacey Atkinson said outside court after the verdict.

“When she dismissed that, he repeatedly stabbed her in front of horrified onlookers. He left her there to die. He walked away and utilised public transport to facilitate his escape out of Bradford.”

Ms Akter fell to the ground after she was stabbed, in the attack described by Mr Wood as a “cold-blooded, calculated, premeditated murder”.

“As a final act of sheer gratuitous violence, he kicks Kulsuma before moving away, but not before ensuring that he disposed of the knife,” he told the court.

Ms Akter’s stab injuries included ones to her body, neck, and face, he added.

Claims he wanted to ‘kill himself in front of her’

Giving evidence through a Bengali interpreter, Masum told the jury he tracked down his wife “still optimistic” he could save his marriage, but if that did not work he thought: “I will just kill myself in front of her.”

He broke down in tears as he claimed he “totally lost control”, later saying that the next thing he could remember was walking along the road with bloodstains on his hand.

But speaking after the court hearing, West Yorkshire Police’s DCI Atkinson said Masum had “realised the extent of evidence against him” so was trying to lean on “diminished responsibility”.

Describing the nature of the murder, she said it was “really unusual” to see “an event unfold on CCTV as it did”.

“Kulsuma suffered a brutal attack in broad daylight whilst her baby son was in his pram,” she said in a statement.

“Kulsuma’s family have been left absolutely devastated by her death, I hope today’s conviction will bring them a sense of justice in knowing that the man responsible for her death has been found guilty.”

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.

Please refresh the page for the fullest version.

You can receive Breaking News alerts on a smartphone or tablet via the Sky News App. You can also follow @SkyNews on X or subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up with the latest news.

On the wall of her family’s living room, there is a large framed photograph of Alice Williams on the day of her first communion.

It’s a short walk from that family home to Alice’s grave.

“On her headstone, we’ve put ‘joyful, creative, gentle, kind, bright, loving’ because those are the things that we want the world to know about Alice,” her mother Clare tells Sky News.

“We don’t want them to look at that headstone and think, ‘Oh, she only got to nine, I wonder why’, because then her killer has overwritten everything she was. And it’s not fair.”

Read more from Sky News
Cancer patients prevented from going on holiday
Boy and girl sentenced over dog walker’s death
Boy, 16, dies after hit and run

Alice’s killer was 55-year-old Qadeer Hussain who, on a Saturday morning, failed to stop at a red light in Halifax, West Yorkshire, as she was crossing with her mother and brother.

“In front of our eyes he ploughed into her, massively fast, and he carried her off on his wing mirror,” she recalls.

“I’ve just got this very clear image of her being swept off her feet and then she tumbled off and, by the time I got to her, it was almost like she was gone.”

In May, Hussain was jailed for eight years for causing Alice’s death by dangerous driving.

Her parents have chosen to speak publicly to highlight the deadly consequences of drivers running red lights.

Her dad Chris says: “It seems bizarre that you would take any risks at all in breaking the law in order to get somewhere slightly faster.”

“The real risk isn’t being caught. It’s actually killing somebody,” Clare adds.

“He’s quite gratuitously killed my child. He slaughtered her in the street for nothing, for no reason at all.

“He battered her to death and any adult should know that when you speed through a pedestrian crossing, there is a risk that you could do that.”

A lack of red light cameras

A Sky News investigation has found that fewer than 1.5% of traffic lights in the UK have red light cameras monitoring them.

Of the 157 local authorities who responded to our request for data or who directed us to their local police forces, many reported no working red light cameras at all.

There are only five in all of Scotland. In West Northamptonshire, the cameras were switched off in 2011 and, in London and Greater Manchester, fewer than 4% of traffic lights have a red light camera.

In Greater Manchester, we also witnessed drivers routinely running red lights at a number of junctions.

Police increasingly rely on dash cam footage submitted by other motorists to take action against drivers who run red lights. The initiative, called Operation Snap, operates nationwide.

Inspector Bradley Ormesher, of Greater Manchester Police, says: “Everyone knows police can’t be everywhere, but a lot of motorists now have dash cams, so effectively they are assisting us in delivering road safety messages. We’ve seen a big increase in submissions.

“There is a bigger picture to everything and just saving a couple seconds by jumping a red light, you’re not thinking about wider society, are you?”

Pat Grace was on her way to clean her local church in Oxfordshire when she was struck and killed by a heavy goods vehicle that failed to stop at a red light on a pedestrian crossing.

The driver Dariusz Meczynski fled the country. He was extradited back to the UK and jailed for three years for causing the 74-year-old’s death by dangerous driving.

Pat’s son Oliver says: “The driver wasn’t distracted just for a second, it was a substantial period of time while he was driving a heavy goods vehicle through a village at 9am. It couldn’t be much worse.

“It could have been a crocodile of schoolchildren crossing the road and he wouldn’t have seen them because he wasn’t looking.

“The chances of being caught are so few and far between. I think there should be cameras on all red lights so there is less chance of getting away with it.”

Dash cams could help

Oliver and Alice’s family are encouraging all drivers to install dash cams.

“We bought a dash cam after this happened,” says Clare. “And we’ve reported four people who went through red lights, and three of them got warnings.

“That is essential because they’re going about thinking they’re invisible and they’re not accountable but actually when they get a warning, hopefully they’ll think again.

“It’s really opened my eyes to how unprotected we are.”

She adds: “We were doing everything we could have done to stay safe. But the only thing that was keeping us safe was a red light bulb and the presumption of goodwill from drivers.

“And I feel like this is being treated dismissively as if it’s an accident when actually it was it was a pure atrocity.”

Red light cameras have since been installed at the crossing where Alice died.

“I’m glad they’re there,” Clare says. “Now they’ve got the cameras and it’s cost whatever they would have cost – plus her life, a lifetime of grief, and all the ripple effects that come from a life without Alice in it.

“She filled our lives with light. She was innocent. She was happy. She loved dancing. She loved singing. She loved us. We just can’t live without her.”