An urban commando who shot at police and motorists

An urban commando who shot at police and motorists in a Rambo-style rampage after he was stopped for having an out of date tax disk was locked up at the Old Bailey today.

(fri)

In a hell-raising pursuit George Knights, 42, peppered police vehicles with bullets, fired through a bus window narrowly missing the driver and then took a motorist hostage.

Knights, dressed in military garb, forced former soldier Hedley Jenkins to drive him home at speed and told him ‘he wasn’t a terrorist but wanted to help liberate Kosovars in the conflict.

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Afterwards father-of-one Knights even complimented Mr Jenkins on his skilful driving, the court was told.

Security expert Knights, the son of an RAF military NCO, then barricaded himself into his home in Shaftesbury Avenue, Feltham.

It was only after a nail-biting two-and-a-half hour siege that armed officers forced their way into arrest him with tear gas and stun grenades.

Knights, who had a loaded pistol in a holster round his waist, was dragged out of the premises by the police, and arrested.

The court heard that various weapons and ammunition were found at Knights’ home, including an Olympic assault rifle, grenades, flare cartridges, a Beretta .

40 calibre pistol, a grenade launcher for attachment under a M16 rifle, grenade parts, and timing devices.

Police then searched the gunman’s Vauxhall Cavalier, which had been abandoned in Main Street, Hanworth, Middsx, and found a bizarre home video showing a fearsome arsenal of machine guns and assorted ammunition laid out on sheets.

The film which features a ‘soundtrack’ of the 1960s pop classic ‘Fire’ by the Crazy World of Arthur Brown and ‘Carmina Burana’ – the famous piece of classical music from the horror movie the Omen – was shown to the court.

And jurors watched dramatic police footage of officers cowering in panic as Knights got out of his car twice to unleash fire from a Glock self-loading pistol and then a machinegun style Bushmaster Assault Rifle.

The chaos then moved to Main Street where Knights shot at Dial-a-Ride bus driver Clive McMahon, 61, through the windscreen during the mayhem on April 28 last year.

Mr McMahon ducked at the last moment and the bullets whistled past his head.

Today after deliberating for more than three-and-a-half hours the jury of four men and eight women unanimously convicted Knights of 19 charges including two of possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life, one of the counts relating to the bus incident.

He showed no emotion as he was further convicted of kidnapping Mr Jenkins.

The 18 other charges all related to the weaponry.

But Knights, smartly dressed in a black suit, white shirt and tie, was cleared of attempting to murder Mr McMahon.

Judge Giles Forrester remanded him in custody for four weeks for pre-sentence and psychiatric reports to be prepared.

After an appearance at the Old Bailey last August, Knights had asked to talk to detectives in the case, claiming he had information about the Jill Dando murder which took place in west London just days earlier.

But officers later confirmed that his information was of no use to the unsolved enquiry.

Two days before the shooting spree Knights told a friend that he had been approached by a member of the security services, masquerading as a woman police sergeant, and asked to work in Kosova for the government.

And giving evidence Knights ran a far fetched defence in which he claimed a fellow KLA sympathiser was responsible for the shooting spree.

Knights said his hatred of ethnic cleansing led him to join the KLA in their struggle against the Serbs.

And Knights said he did not own the awesome stockpile of weaponry at his home in Staines, west London, when he was on 48 hour standby to join the crisis last year.

Knights maintained that the arsenal belonged to fellow KLA sympathiser called ‘John Paul’ who would regularly visit him.

He said he was on call to join the Kosova crisis where he would fight the Serbs as a back-up sniper and install long-range digital radio transmitters and receivers, which could be used to switch and trigger bombs.

Knights, born and brought up on the Norton Hall RAF base, Lincs, also claimed to have done security work during the filming of the Tom Cruise blockbuster Mission Impossible.

After his arrest Knights took detectives to ‘Cupid’s Copice’, an area of dense woodland behind Clackett’s Lane service station, Biggin Hill where pistol parts and grenade ‘husks’ had been sealed inside a CCTV camera housing.

Knights claimed to the court that there John Paul had left a ‘sign’ behind showing that he had successfully made it out of the country.

He said he initially told police he was the gunman because he wanted to ‘protect John Paul.

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Knights, who spoke of the ordeal of being held in ‘treble A category’ solitary confinement at high security Belmarsh Prison, said he now wanted to come clean about the KLA mission.

But Nick Wood prosecuting suggested Knights was a ‘wanabee soldier’ who was fascinated by the SAS and the military.

And a former friend of Knights told the court how he noticed a change in his personality after his longterm girlfriend walked out on him in 1998 and denied access to his baby daughter.

Knights, who has previous convictions dating back to the 1980s mainly for vehicle related crime, had told how he set up a security firm called ‘IEB’ based in Zurich.

He also said he worked for a US based company called the National Security Association.

His young daughter now lives with his now estranged partner in Bolton.

Knights said to the judge: ‘I apologise my Lord’ as he was led to the cells.

ends

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