'Killer ignored phone thief's plea'

A mobile phone thief paid with his life when he was trapped at a block of flats, beaten up and fatally stabbed.

Winston Pierre, 36, a petty crook who had snatched a phone from a table at a restaurant in Lillie Road, Fulham, was heard "pleading" with his assailant, the Old Bailey was told today.

"Leave it out, I won't do it again," neighbours heard him say before they found him in a pool of blood in Cheeseman's Terrace, West Kensington, on 29 April last year. Pierre, who lived nearby, had a fractured skull and stab wounds to the back and chest.

Decorator Brian Jales, 38, of Cheeseman's Terrace, who denied being the assailant, was cleared by the jury of murder and discharged.

His lawyer, Michael Wolkind QC, told the jury no one had identified Mr Jales as being at the scene.