Sekai Miles, 23, of Brent Cross Gardens in Hendon, has been sentenced to an indefinite hospital order for the killing of 87-year-old Bernard Fowler, of Hamilton Drive in Harold Wood.
He pleaded guilty in January to manslaughter by diminished responsibility, which the Crown Prosecution Service accepted.
More than two-dozen spectators – including Mr Fowler’s son Ian, from Basildon – packed into a sentencing hearing at the at Old Bailey on Friday (April 4).
The court heard details of the “horrific” attack at Harold Wood railway station on February 27, 2024.
Miles had become obsessed with religion, believing “he was being saved by God” and his route to good mental health was “daily evangelising”, rather than taking medication.
A test in custody gave a “positive presumptive result” that he had smoked synthetic cannabis – known as spice – before the fatal attack, but he insisted the test was wrong.
Miles showed no emotion as he sat in the dock, wearing a black suit and a white shirt, flanked by six men, including two in NHS lanyards.
He has so far been held in Broadmoor Hospital, whose past patients have included Ronnie Kray and Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe.
Prosecutor Ben Aina KC told Judge Judy Khan KC that the attack on Mr Fowler was filmed on CCTV.
“The defendant gouges Mr Fowler’s eyes,” he said. “He falls to the floor. The defendant then attacks him as he is lying helpless on the ground.
“The defendant kicks Mr Fowler in the head. He then picks up Mr Fowler’s walking stick by the end and starts to hit him in the head with enormous force. Mr Fowler is hit in the head 19 times.
“The defendant then stamps on Mr Fowler’s head – and he does that eight times. My Lady has seen the CCTV. The attack is truly shocking and appalling.”
Miles left the scene, said Mr Aina, but came back around 15 minutes later, carrying Mr Fowler’s bloodied walking stick in one hand and his own bloodied trainers in the other.
CCTV captured him standing “with his arms in the air over Mr Fowler, almost in what looks like a triumph stance”.
He then returned a second time and walked around Mr Fowler’s body.
Police were called by a taxi driver who had picked up a member of the public “in a state of panic”.
When police arrived, Miles ran away and struggled with them after they apprehended him.
Hours before killing Mr Fowler, Miles had twice threatened to kill a staff member at Harold Wood station.
In custody, a dip test gave a positive indication for the drug spice – but his defence disputed the finding.
Psychiatrists said even if he had used the drug, the primary cause of Mr Fowler’s killing was Miles’s underlying serious psychiatric illness.
When police tried to interview him, he punched a police officer and banged his head against a wall three or four times.
In his backpack, officers found a Bible and 13 orange leaflets saying, “Are you saved? If you died today, Heaven or Hell?”
In the Bible, a “large number” of passages were highlighted, including one which said, “He was three days without sight,” and another which said, “Immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales: and he received sight forthwith”.
More religious materials were found when police searched his Brent Cross home, including many passages from the Bible and the Quran.
Asked for a sample of his blood, he told police he would not give one because he was a Christian.
“I spill blood, I don’t give it,” he said.
A post-mortem examination of Mr Fowler found fractures all over his face, including his nose, eye sockets and cheekbones.
He also had bleeds on the brain.
Defence barrister Brenda Campbell KC said her client recognised Mr Fowler was “an entirely innocent victim of Mr Miles’s actions”.
“He is profoundly sorry for that and he asks me to make that clear orally before the court and before Mr Fowler’s family today.”
The court heard moving impact statements from several family members, including Mr Fowler’s son Ian.
“Losing my father in such a sudden and violent manner has affected me badly,” he said. “I have had nightmares about what my father went through.
“It breaks my heart that this happened to the man that raised me and taught me about life.”
He described his dad as “an upstanding man in the community”.
Mr Fowler was making his regular early morning trip to the station to pick up newspapers for his neighbours when he was killed.
His other son Darrin told the court he had been left suffering anxiety and depression.
“I now struggle to find positives in my life or feel happiness,” he wrote.
He described Mr Fowler as “loving, thoughtful and supportive”.
“My father had a huge heart and showed care and compassion for others,” he wrote. “It doesn’t feel real and I can’t process or accept my father has gone… I’m now existing, not living… I feel alone and lost without him.”
