Peter Kyte QC and Ben FitzGerald successfully prosecuted Leonard Head for the murder of his neighbour Jeffrey Coombes.
The trial took place at Snaresbrook CC during January and February 2014. Mr Coombes’ body was found by the police in a state of severe decomposition at his home in mid-July 2013.
He had been killed some weeks earlier in a savage attack, following which his TV, laptop and mobile phone were stolen. Leonard Head, a man with a considerable history of criminal offending, was identified through DNA and fingerprint evidence as having passed on these items shortly after the killing. The prosecution case involved the presentation of painstakingly obtained circumstantial evidence of the defendant’s movements and state of mind around the time of the killing, as well as his dealings with the stolen items after the victim’s death.