Would-be aristocrat will get jail wish granted
The ex-fiancée of Prince Charles’ godson is set to have her wish to be jailed granted after she was convicted of a frenzied knife attack on two tourist.
Zeaphena Badley, 35, sliced through the back of Oona McCabe’s right knee with a rusty Stanley blade as she walked into Burger King on London Street, Paddington.
She then cut the 24-year-old’s boyfriend, Kevin Cannon, under the chin when he tried to intervene, Southwark Crown Court heard.
As Mr Cannon then turned to check on his girlfriend, Badley launched herself at the Irishwoman a second time, repeatedly hacking at her head leaving pools of blood on the fast food outlet’s floor.
‘On the face of it there was no history or reason behind the attack,’ prosecutor Tom Nicholson told jurors.
‘Indeed, the only apparent reason was the defendant wanted to go to prison rather than live on the street.’
When Badley was told she was going to be arrested for causing grievous bodily harm she replied: ‘Brilliant.’
The court heard she launched another unprovoked attack on a stranger in the Joe Strummer underpass, on Edgware Road, just 36 hours earlier.
‘She was arrested for that offence in the evening and bailed by the court on 16 January – the very day where, at about 12.30am in the morning, she committed this assault,’ said Mr Nicholson.
Badley is currently serving a 20-week sentence for that attack, imposed in March, and has largely ignored the current proceedings.
She briefly appeared in the dock yesterday morning when she initially indicated a willingness to finally take part in the trial.
But, after identifying herself in the footage, she again stormed out of court after launching a foul-mouthed tirade in which she claimed she was the real victim.
A jury of five men and seven women took less than an hour to find her guilty of causing GBH with intent to Ms McCabe.
She was also convicted of two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm against Mr Cannon and passer-by Alfonso Moncada.
Badley has 21 convictions for 36 offences including arson, theft and a string of assaults against members of the public and police officers alike dating back to 1999.
The judge, Mr Recorder Andrew Wales, QC, ordered psychiatric reports ahead of sentence in around seven weeks’ time.
The former Kensington resident was engaged to Eton-educated Nicholas Knatchbull, titled Lord Romsey, for 18 months before the wedding was called off in 2013.
She was sleeping rough when she spotted the couple walking over to the Burger King following a night out in Soho.
‘They had never seen each other before, they had never talked to each other,’ said the prosecutor.
‘She was just effectively unlucky to be there at the time when the defendant chose to make her attack.’
CCTV footage showed Badley slashing at Ms McCabe as they entered the restaurant before slicing Mr Cannon’s face and dragging Ms McCabe to the ground where she resumed her attack.
Describing her feeling a ‘burning sensation’, Mr Nicholson said: ‘She didn’t immediately realise, but this was in fact, we say, the defendant Zeaphena Badley using a Stanley knife-type blade to slash her almost all the way across her leg just above the back of the knee.’
The student later told jurors she also needed 11 stitches to the front of her head, 13 to the back of her head, and one to her face following attack which left her covered in blood.
‘She lunged out, grabbed Ms McCabe by the hair and struck her repeatedly in the head, cutting her with the Stanley knife blade, and shouting about wanting to be put back in jail,’ added Mr Nicholson.
Mr Cannon, aided by Mr Moncada who was cut on his finger, eventually restrained Badley before police arrived.
Badley could be heard on body-worn footage replying ‘brilliant’ when being arrested.
During a brief appearance in court, before the jury arrived, she claimed: ‘I wasn’t well.’
She told the court ‘the medication was helping’ now, before adding: ‘But I still hear voices.’
During a bizarre rant from the dock she referred to herself as the ‘mother of all demons’, ‘Mary’ and ‘your Queen’ before claiming she ‘just wanted them to stop calling me names’.
But she quickly grew increasingly aggressive when shown the CCTV of the attack for the first time.
After confirming ‘Yes, that’s me’, she pointed out that ‘he’s holding me’ as Mr Cannon tried to restrain her.
‘That’s three people against one person,’ she shouted.
‘These people are assaulting me.
‘If anyone’s f***ing traumatised it’s me.’
Branding her own treatment as ‘absolutely f***ing disgusting’, she maintained she was the victim despite lying on the floor surrounded by her victim’s blood.
Badley then turned on the court and screamed: ‘None of you would have f***ing jobs if it wasn’t for me.’
After insisting ‘They’re the real criminals’ she then stormed out and refused to play any further part in the trial.
Ms McCabe and her boyfriend later gave evidence via video-link from Dublin.
She claimed Badley called her a ‘stupid bitch’ during the attack and said: ‘Put me back in prison.’
Mr Cannon added that he felt she ‘wasn’t making much sense’.
‘She was talking about Mary and the Queen,’ he added.
‘She was threatening me, basically saying she was going to kill me.’
The judge asked each of them: ‘If anyone were to suggest that the woman was acting in self-defence at any point in the incident, what would you say to that?’
Wiping away tears, Ms McCabe labelled the suggestion ‘ridiculous’, while her boyfriend called it ‘crazy’.
Badley would have been in line to inherit a £100m fortune as the 9th Baroness Brabourne following her engagement to Lord Romsey in 2010.
The pair met in rehab.
After the relationship to Knatchbull ended she moved out of his 60-room mansion Broadlands Estate in Hampshire and has briefly been homeless on the streets on London.
Badley, formerly of Cromwell Road, Kensington, southwest London, denied grievous bodily harm with intent and two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm but was convicted by the jury.
She remains in custody ahead of sentence at Southwark Crown Court on a date to be set later.
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