Killer accused banker of ‘kidnapping someone’

An electrician accused a millionaire banker of kidnap after he punched him to death in a random attack in London’s West End, a court heard.

Paul Mason, 52, CEO for Qatar National Bank, had dined at the exclusive Ivy Club before he was allegedly murdered by Steven Allan, 34, on 15 December 2020.

Allan, who had been drinking in various bars, had accused Mr Mason of stealing his friend’s mobile phone before knocking him to the ground.

As Mr Mason tried to get up Allan hit him with an uppercut and witnesses heard the sickening crunch as his skull made contact with the pavement.

Allan shouted at him: ‘Where’s your fight now’ as the victim lay senseless, the Old Bailey has heard.

Doctors battled to save Mr Mason and carried out a procedure to replace part of his skull with a sheet of titanium, but he died six months later.

Nayara Ruiz, who works as a critical care nurse at St Mary’s hospital in Paddington, was out in the area with two fellow nurses.

They had left a Seven Dials restaurant at 10pm and were walking through Cambridge Circus when the incident took place.

She told the court: ‘We were waiting to cross the road when I heard some noises that caught my attention.

‘I saw the suspect and the victim, and their body language looked a bit awkward. I thought that they were having an argument.

‘It was mainly the suspect making noise. I couldn’t catch any words but it was his voice shouting at the victim.

‘The victim looked more passive, he looked like he didn’t want to confront him. He wasn’t physically aggressive.

‘The suspect was more aggressive, he was more physically closer to the victim, more willing to get involved in this fight.

‘Then I saw the suspect pushing the victim with both hands in the chest.

‘The victim stumbled backwards, halfway down to the floor.

‘He tried to stand up, and then the suspect punched him on his face. The punch hit around his right eye.

‘After that punch the victim fell backwards onto the pavement and he ended up lying on his head, on his back.

‘When he fell, I heard a crack when his head hit the floor.

‘He wasn’t moving. I saw some spots of blood on the pavement and a bit on his forehead.

‘We went over to try and help him.

‘The suspect said “Leave him, don’t touch him, you don’t know what he did. Then I think he said he had kidnapped someone.’

Jurors have heard Ms Ruiz’s friend Laura Gil Selva recalled Allan saying: ‘Don’t touch him or help him. You don’t know what he did. He’s kidnapped my nephew!’

Ms Ruiz said: ‘I assessed him (Mr Mason), he was unconscious, he wasn’t moving, he did not respond.

‘We didn’t move him because he had a head injury. I think the suspect was approaching him but my friends and I were really keen to tell him “please don’t touch him, please don’t move him.”

‘He was gasping, he was struggling to breathe. We told somebody there to call for an ambulance.’

Allan’s defence lawyer William Boyce, KC, said a passing taxi blocking her view meant Ms Ruiz could not be sure Allan had punched Mr Mason in the face.

Ms Ruiz said she was able to see the incident through the taxi’s windows.

Gertrude Alvaraz, who worked as a critical care nurse at University College London Hospital, was one of the group of three nurses walking through Cambridge Circus.

She told the court: ’I saw a man on the floor trying to stand up and another man in front of him.’

Ms Alvaraz said she did not see how he came to be on the floor.

She continued: ‘He was trying to get up, when male two [Allan] punched him. He punched him in his face and male one [Mr Mason] fell and hit the back of his head against the floor.

‘He was lying with his back to the pavement.’

She added that Mr Mason did not do anything to try and break his fall, and that he didn’t move again after that.

She said: ‘He took some object from him, I thought it was an umbrella, of a dark colour.’

Another witness, Gary McGuiness told the jury the object was a mobile phone.

Ms Alvaraz said: ‘I was trying to help male one then male two came and said “Leave him, do you know what he did? He kidnapped my nephew!”

‘We were trying to stop him from touching him. We were saying “leave him, don’t touch him, he’s not okay.”

‘Male two was around and then he left when a third person, someone he seemed to know came and told him “Let’s go, leave him.” That’s when he left.’

Defence lawyer Mr Boyce suggested she had not seen the punch because of a passing taxi and that the idea may have been put into her head by somebody else.

Mr Boyce said: ‘After you had handed Mr Mason over to the ambulance staff, you and the others stood there talking for about half an hour or 45 minutes before you were taken into a police car to give your statement, did you talk about what had just happened?

‘That would have been the most natural thing.’

Ms Alvaraz replied: ‘No, we talked about what was going to happen to him, not what had just happened.

‘We are all ICU nurses so we see this kind of trauma every day, we are more likely to talk about the consequences of what had happened.’

Allan, of Hook, Hampshire, admits manslaughter but denies murder.

The trial continues.