A murderer who confessed to the bonded murder of a bartender found naked and bound in his Kensington flat 42 years ago has been jailed for 19 years.
John Paul, 61, beat 42-year-old Anthony Bird with pieces of wood before rendering him unconscious and tied up at his flat in Bentley Court, Kensington Square in June 1980.
Paul walked into Hammersmith Police Station and reported his horrific crime to an officer on May 5 last year.
When asked what he had done, he replied simply: ‘Murder’.
Paul denied the murder, despite the confession, but a jury at the Old Bailey convicted him on October 24.
Anthony Bird, 42, was beaten with pieces of wood before he was rendered unconscious and bound in his flat in Bentley Court, Kensington Square in June 1980.
The judge, Mrs. Justice Cheema-Grubb, jailed Paul for life and ordered him to serve a minimum of 19 years in prison.
Jurors heard details of the confession during the two-week trial.
When asked what happened, she told an officer, “I see a man, he came up to me and he was just talking to me and he convinced me to have sex with him.”
He took me back to his house.
I tied it with a rope. I think the cable was black, not sure.
‘I tied him with a rope, his ankles, his hands, his arms, on the bed naked.
John Paul, 61, walked into Hammersmith Police Station and reported his horrific crime to an officer on May 5 last year.
‘There was a piece of wood, a piece of wood, I used the piece of wood to hit it.
It knocked him unconscious.
Officers investigated whether there was a record of an unsolved murder of a man at around the same time and place Paul was reporting, the court heard.
The unsolved murder of Mr. Bird was deemed “worth looking at” and that afternoon, Paul was arrested for the murder.
The 61-year-old man was admitted as an inpatient at Hillingdon Hospital the following day while police investigated.
John Paul, 61, beat Anthony Bird, 42, with pieces of wood before strangling him at his flat in Bentley Court, Kensington Square (pictured) in June 42 years ago.
Judge Cheema-Grubb said: ‘Mr Bird’s friends say he was in the habit of having sex with strangers he met on the street.
He met you, a 19-year-old walking down the street who had just come out of reform school. I’m sure you intended to rob him.
You knew he was looking for sex, but you had no intention of getting involved.
‘He undressed and used a flex to tie it up at her request.
Now he was helpless and vulnerable. To make sure he didn’t scream for help, you hit him over the head until he was unconscious.
His death would have been caused by rendering him unconscious while he was in that position with his knees raised and his airway compressed.
Mr. Bird approached you looking for an intimate connection and you decided it was something you could use and exploit.
“I take into account the enormous burden that mental illness has been on you for at least the last 20 years and will continue to affect your life and how you cope with your sentence.”
The judge said she was obliged to consider what the sentence would have been if it had been committed in 2022 and what it would have been if she had been sentenced 20 years ago.
Paul denied the murder, despite the confession, but was convicted by an Old Bailey jury (pictured) last month.
Paul’s defense attorney, Tama Adkien, said he had shown as much remorse as possible given his schizophrenia.
In a victim impact statement read in court, Mr Bird’s sister-in-law, Gillian Bird, said: “I was married to Tony’s brother Richard for 63 years who sadly passed away in November 2021.”
‘My family and I remember hearing about the murder very vividly.
“I remember the family was at the local town fair when a tannoy came out for Richard.
“Two police officers came to tell us that he had been murdered, but they did not know who was responsible.
“At the time we were shocked and traumatized by the circumstances of his death.
‘We were never told any information about how he had been killed.
“Tony’s mom, Pauline, was so shocked and upset that she couldn’t bury him for six months.
It was horrible for her to have to wait six months to let him rest. We never had any reason for this at the time.
Pauline died six years later. She was always a fighter and we have no doubt that her death was hastened by the fact that Tony had been killed. They had always been in frequent contact.
“Tony was a remote relative living alone in London, but it was still hard to know that his life had ended that way, made worse by the fact that we never got an answer as to what really happened to him.
‘Now, 42 years later, we can rest easy knowing that the perpetrator has been convicted and sentenced for this heinous crime.
“Having seen Mr. Paul in the dock, we’d like to say that we don’t hate him and we feel sorry for him, we sympathize a bit with his current circumstances.”
“Mr. Bird lived alone on that floor,” said John Price, a prosecutor at the trial.
“He was a gay man, and his friends knew that he often picked up men off the street and paid them for sex.
“His next-door neighbor, who was taken by the police during the first investigation, spoke of frequent male visitors to his apartment.”
Mr. Bird was in Queensway on June 3, 1980, when he met some friends and told them he “had his eye on a black boy” before following him.
“Among those who knew him, Tony Bird was never seen alive again,” the prosecutor said.
Mr Bird was due to work shifts at the Railway Tap pub that week and the pub owner became concerned when he did not turn up.
Police were finally called on June 6 after a staff member received no response when sent to knock on Mr Bird’s door.
‘The policemen went to the flat that Friday and also knocked on the door. Once again, there was no response,” Price said.
“The front door was securely locked and obviously now fearing for Mr. Bird’s safety they had to use a sledgehammer to open it.
‘The curtains were completely drawn in the living room of the apartment. The room was in a bedraggled state as if it had apparently been ransacked.
‘There was a cupboard with nothing on it, although they did notice there were patterns in the dust marks that indicated the objects… had been recently moved.
They entered the bedroom. On the bed they found the lifeless body of Tony Bird.
I was naked. He was lying on his side. His knees were bent and his legs were crossed.
‘There was a black electrical cable tied tightly around his left wrist and around his left ankle. It also had a cord mark around his right wrist.
“There were numerous marks and apparent bruising in various places on his body.”
An autopsy in 1980 found multiple sites of blunt force injuries on Mr. Bird’s body, including bruising to his head, jaw, chest, thighs, and the base of his penis, as well as a fracture of the neck bone.
Pathologist Rufus Crompton found the injuries consistent with the use of ‘wooden crowbars’.
Dr. Crompton also believed that the cause of death was “manual strangulation”, but this was not the case.
The court heard fingerprints taken from the scene decades ago, previously unattributed, matched Paul’s fingerprints.
Paul was charged with the murder on May 27 last year.
Paul, from Ladbroke Grove, Notting Hill, west London, denied it but was found guilty of murder.
Porter and part-time barman Anthony Bird, 42, was found naked and with his wrists bound in his apartment in Kensington Gardens Square, west London, on June 6, 1980.
His murder remained a mystery for 41 years, until 61-year-old John Paul confessed to police last year that he had “beaten” him with a piece of wood.
Paul, from Maida Vale, west London, denied the murder and an alternative charge of manslaughter at his trial at the Old Bailey.
It was claimed that his confession to the murder was unreliable and that, even if he were responsible, he did not intend to do Mr. Bird any really serious harm.
An Old Bailey jury deliberated for half a day before finding Paul guilty of murder.
On Friday, Mrs Cheema-Grubb jailed him at the Old Bailey for life with a minimum sentence of 19 years.
She said: ‘It was ruthless and motivated by the desire to take what did not belong to you.
I have no doubt that it was a murder for profit. You decided it was a target you could exploit.
Earlier, John Price KC said Bird was last seen alive on the night of June 3, 1980, in the Queensway area of west London.
He told friends he ‘had his eye on a black boy’ and had sped after him, the court heard.
After Bird failed to show up for work at the Railway Tap pub, police were called to his one-bedroom apartment, jurors heard.
Officers used a sledgehammer to smash the property and found it appeared to have been “looted,” Price said.
The prosecutor told the jury: ‘The officers entered the bedroom. On the bed they found the lifeless body of Tony Bird. He was naked. He was lying on his side. He had his knees bent and his legs crossed.
‘A black electrical cable was tied tightly around his left wrist and around his left ankle. There was a cord mark around her right wrist. There were numerous marks and apparent bruises on her body.
The court was told that two planks of wood were found at the scene.
Price told the jury that after his confession, Paul’s fingerprints were taken and compared to crime scene evidence.
In a victim impact statement, Mr. Bird’s family said they were “devastated, shocked and traumatized” by his death.
