Month: February 2022

Wales Online | 3rd February 2022

A doctor was murdered in a homophobic attack carried out by two men and a teenage girl in a Cardiff park after they targeted a gay man to rob.

Dr Gary Jenkins, 54, was brutally beaten, kicked and punched to death in Bute Park in the early hours of July 20 last year.

Audio of the horrendous attack, carried out by Jason Edwards, 25, Lee Strickland, 36, and Dionne Timms-Williams, 17, depicted Dr Jenkins pleading for help and for his attacks to “Leave me alone” but his cries were left unheeded…

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Witness Owain Hill explains how the encounter with the group he met in Bute Park in the early hours of July 20 last year developed…

“There’s a wooden seating area we sat on behind the Summerhouse Cafe and they just asked me about being gay. The one who was originally sat down he started lighting a cigaretts of cannabis I think.

“In that moment I started getting uncomfortable and made an excuse to leave… I believe I said I had work in the morning so had to go… I just felt they were really intoxicated and by that point I had sobered up and didn’t want to be around that.

“I thought they were pressuring me to drink with them and they were going to pressure me into smoking with them which I didn’t want to do, I wanted to leave really.”

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Edwards says he hadn’t taken cannabis or crack on the day in question, and had only drunk alcohol – he puts his level of intoxication as seven out of 10.

In response to questions from officers the defendants says he takes cannabis to make him “calmer”, and that he takes it because he is no longer given Rital for his ADHD.

Officer: “How much do you smoke?”

Edwards: “Enough.”

Officer: “How much does it cost you?”

Edwards: “No comment.”

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Edwards says he was unable to get cannabis or crack in the city centre on the day in question but that friends he wouldn’t name had bought him alcohol. He denies committing crime to buy drugs, saying his use is funded through benefits and his nan.

He says he uses cannabis as “self-medication”.

The jury is now hearing details of another interview with Edwards. When the officer mentions CCTV audio from the Summerhouse Cafe in Bute Park the defendant said he has remembered being chased by undercover police officers in the early hours of the morning. He said he ran from officers because he had cannabis on him, and did not want to get caught, and that he hid in a block of flats before going home.

Asked why he had not mentioned this incident before, Edwards replied: “It’s only just coming back to me.” The defendant says cannabis affects his memory and that he is addicted to it, calling it his “medication”. Edwards describes his use of crack cocaine as a “hobby”.

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/bute-park-murder-trial-court-22849979