Jailed: A judge told Connah Smith she hoped there was something who could be saved inside his mind
Two trainee nurses were tortured for seven hours by a spurned lover who tricked his way into their flat in an attack from a ‘horror movie’.
Gabby
Price and Megan Parson were tied up, doused in petrol and had lit
matches thrown at them by Connah Smith who asked them how they wanted to
die.
He repeatedly stabbed the pair and held Miss Price under water in the bath.
When he finally left the women’s home, he said: ‘Don’t tell the police, give it a day. I want to have a good night’s sleep.’
Smith,
who watched violent pornography online in the months leading up to the
attack in March, was yesterday jailed for life for attempted murder.
Miss Price, 22, had rejected his advances after they met while working at a supermarket in Brighton, Lewes Crown Court heard.
Smith
spent weeks plotting his revenge, searching on the internet for ‘what’s
the best way to murder somebody and not get caught?’ and ‘how are most
serial killers caught?’.
The
20-year-old packed a rucksack with a hammer, knives, an imitation gun, a
can of petrol, matches and gaffer tape and waited outside Miss Price’s
home.
When she returned from work, he asked to use her toilet before slamming the door behind them both.
He stabbed Miss Price and tied her up before pouncing on her 21-year-old flatmate Miss Parson when she arrived two hours later.
Smith
told the pair he was going to kill them as he stabbed them in the head,
neck and body. He then covered them in petrol and forced them to lie on
the bed where he threw lit matches at them.
When the petrol failed to ignite he said: ‘Oh, this is not what happens in films. I thought it would be a bigger explosion.’
The pair’s ordeal ended just before 3am when Miss Parson feigned a miscarriage and begged to be allowed to call an ambulance.
She later told police: ‘It was like a horror movie, like he had watched hundreds of horror movies and he just liked to do it.
‘I kept asking him why and he said it did not matter why.’
Smith’s
father Michael said his son had given no sign of having committed a
crime when he arrived at their shared Brighton home in the early hours.
‘He came back that night and he was OK. I just think [it was] like a game and it just got out of hand,’ he said.
Smith's
father Michael said after the trial: 'I don't know why he did it. He
came back that night and he was OK. I just think [it was] like a game
and it just got out of hand. He blames himself for it and is full of
remorse'
‘He
blames himself for it and is full of remorse.’ Before his trial, Smith
had admitted wounding with intent, false imprisonment and threats to
kill.
But
he said he did not intend to kill the women, with his defence lawyers
arguing in court that his acts were ‘consistent with someone who sets
out to terrorise, to harm and humiliate’.
After
a five-day trial, jurors took barely two hours to convict Smith of two
counts of attempted murder. Judge Shani Barnes ruled he should serve a
minimum of 15 years.
In
a statement after the hearing, Smith’s victims said: ‘Connah Smith is
an extremely dangerous man and we are pleased his conviction means that
he is unlikely to be able to hurt someone else for the foreseeable
future.’
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