Wembley park stabbings: Danyal Hussein guilty of murdering sisters
- Published
A man who stabbed two sisters at random in a supposed demonic pact - a "sacrifice" he seemingly believed would enable him to win the lottery - has been found guilty of their murder.
Danyal Hussein, 19, killed Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman at Fryent Country Park in Wembley on 6 June 2020.
He repeatedly stabbed them at the park after a birthday party for Ms Henry.
Their bodies were found there by Ms Smallman's boyfriend the day after they had been reported missing to police.
The Old Bailey heard how the sisters had been with a small group of friends to celebrate Ms Henry's 46th birthday.
When the others left they decided to stay on as they were enjoying themselves. They lit fairy lights, listened to music and danced, the trial heard.
After they failed to make it home, loved ones went back to the park to search for them and two days later found the women's sunglasses and a knife.
Adam Stone, 27-year-old Ms Smallman's partner, then discovered the two bodies intertwined in the undergrowth as he was on the phone to the police.
It can be reported for the first time that Hussein had previously been referred by his school to the government's counter-extremism programme, Prevent.
In October 2017, aged 15, he was referred to the de-radicalisation scheme because of content he had accessed on school computers, including far-right material.
Hussein had a long-standing interest in mythology, Satanism, and the occult.
He was put on the "Channel programme" - for the most concerning Prevent cases - which discharged him in 2018, although he was seen again six and 12 months later.
Channel involves a multi-agency panel responsible for assessing the risk posed by a referred person. The programme is then charged with developing a support plan for the individual concerned.
During the trial, the jury heard Ms Henry had been stabbed eight times and Ms Smallman 28 times.
Police raided Hussein's home almost a month after the deaths. DNA evidence found at the scene connected him to the murders.
In his bedroom, officers found three lottery tickets folded inside a letter signed in blood. In it, Hussein promised to sacrifice six women every six months in exchange for winning the Mega Millions Super Jackpot.
Over the 10 days following the killings, he spent more than £160 on lottery tickets and bets, all without success.
In another note found in his room, he offered blood to "demon Queen Byleth" in exchange for making a girl at his school fall in love with him.
The jury heard blood found in the park was a billion times more likely to have come from the teenage suspect than anyone else, while CCTV footage showed him buying a set of knives from Asda a day before the killings.
Hussein did not give evidence during the trial but denied he was the person who carried out the murders.
As well as being convicted of two counts of murder, he was found guilty of possessing an offensive weapon.
The 19-year-old is due to be sentenced on 22 September.
Mrs Justice Whipple ordered psychiatric reports to be carried out ahead of sentencing. She told the defendant he faced a long prison term.
In a victim impact statement read out in court, the sisters' mother Mina Smallman said: "No-one expects their children to die before them but to have two of your three children murdered overnight is just incomprehensible.
"If any good comes out of this, at least another four women will not meet a similar end in a so-called pact with a so-called demon," she added.
Det Ch Insp Simon Harding, the senior investigating officer in the case, described it as "one of the most shocking and chilling" he had dealt with.
He said the two victims "had lots of friends and lived life to the full", while footage taken by them on the night they died showed "their bond and shared pleasure in being in each other's company".
The senior officer also described Hussein as an "arrogant" and "evil" killer who had acted as a "belligerent child" in court.
"He has behaved like a teenage boy but he has committed some of the most savage crimes we have seen for many years," he said.
Two Met Police officers, PC Deniz Jaffer, 47, and PC Jamie Lewis, 32, have been charged with misconduct in public office for taking "non-official and inappropriate photographs" of the murder scene.
The pair, who are both suspended from duty, are due to appear at the Old Bailey on 13 July to enter a plea formally.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) is carrying out a separate inquiry into how the Met handled calls from worried relatives and friends of Ms Smallman and Ms Henry before their bodies were discovered.