A builder’s labourer accused of a sadistic killing
A builder’s labourer accused of a sadistic killing claimed today he was nowhere scene – despite leaving his fingerprint in blood on the murder weapon.
Hassan El-Harrak, 31, inflicted countless injuries
on talented musician Richard Graydon and tortured him with a hot iron, it is alleged.
But today El-Harrak, a former solicitor’s clerk, said he must have left bloody fingerprints when he attacked Mr Graydon before.
Asked why he had not given himself up when he knew the police were looking for him, El-Harrak said: ‘I was shocked, panicky and nervous all at the same time.
He added: ‘I was more concerned with my family than the police.
‘
El-Harrak said he met divorcee Mr Graydon at a job club in Shepherds Bush and later they both moved into a hostel on Erith Road, south east London.
‘He was a nice man.
He was a gentleman.
He was all right,’ said Moroccan born El-Harrak.
Mr Graydon got a job as a customer clerk for the Connex railway company and took a flat in Westbourne Grove, Paddington.
El-Harrak was thrown out of the hostel when he tried to headbutt a man there and threatened to rip another worker’s throat out, the court heard.
He admitted breaking Mr Graydon nose when headbutted and punched him in the face during a row.
El-Harrak said he also hit the victim in the face
in a row over money a month before he died.
‘If I get angry its a verbal thing.
We have all got a temper but it takes me a quite a lot before I become physical,’ El-Harrak told the jury.
After he was made homeless El-Harrak moved in with Mr Graydon.
The prosecution claim El-Harrak was forcing the victim to hand over money for drugs but the accused killer said after dabbling in cocaine ecstasy and cannabis he had not taken drugs for a decade.
He said he had left the flat but returned to the flat to hand back Mr Graydon’s cash point card which he had given him to pay off a debt.
But he insisted he had not seen the victim since October 3 – a week before he was murdered.
The next he heard about Mr Gradyon was when he was at his sister’s home and she told him their father’s front door had been kicked in by the police.
‘She said that Richard Graydon had been murdered and the police said there was a witness who saw me do it,’ El-Harrack recalled.
‘I said to myself I have got to get out of here.
I needed time to think and see what I was going to do.
‘At that point I just wanted to get away and have a drink.
That was my first reaction.
‘
El-Harrack said he was worried for his family because ‘they had just kicked my dad’s door in.
‘
‘He was very happy about the situation,’ the accused murderer explained.
‘I jumped on the first bus that came.
I was getting paranoid, looking at police cars.
‘I went to the pub.
That’s where I went first.
‘
El-Harrak said he spent that Sunday night at a friend’s house and stayed at various addresses until he went to another pal’s home four days later.
There he met two Spanish women who called the police after they rowed with him.
El-Harrak said two cigarette ends with his DNA on them must have been left at the flat on a previous occasion.
He claimed the same must have been true of bloody his bloody fingerprints which were found on the wall and the leg of the table.
‘Its probably from the time I punched him when I was tidying the place up,’ said El-Harrak.
‘I can recall touching the table leg when I punched him.
‘
El-Harrak, who was last living Goldolpin Road, Shepherds Bush, denies murder between October 10 and 15 last year.
The victim had lived in Gillingham with his wife before coming to live in London.
The trial continues
ends
