Wife weeps over footage of ‘frenzied’ killing
The wife of an IT consultant stabbed to death by a fellow rail passenger wept in court as footage of the ‘quick and frenzied’ knife attack was shown to jurors.
Darren Pencille, 36, allegedly killed 51-year-old Lee Pomeroy in a ‘savage and unrelenting’ onslaught on board the Guildford to London Waterloo train on January 4.
Mr Pomeroy, who died on the eve of his 52nd birthday, was on his way to the capital for a day out with his 14-year-old son.
The Old Bailey has heard how the argument broke out after Pencille made a ‘rather snide’ remark as he jostled past the Pomeroys up the aisle moments after getting on.
As the father remonstrated with him and before any punches had been thrown, he whipped a knife out of his jacket pocket and stabbed Mr Pomeroy in the neck, jurors were told.
Pencille got off at Clandon, where he was picked up by girlfriend Chelsea Mitchell, 28, who is accused of ferrying him away from the scene, helping him change his appearance and carrying out internet searches into the killing.
Mr Pomeroy died a little over an hour later after suffering the fatal neck wound along with another eight to his torso and further cuts to his arm, hands and thigh in less than 30 seconds.
His wife Svetlana Pomeroy sobbed quietly as jurors were taken through various CCTV clips piecing together events leading up to the fatal stabbing.
Members of Mr Pomeroy’s family sitting up in the public gallery overlooking the courtroom walked out before footage of the stabbing was played.
The IT consultant can be seen arriving at the station with his son, who stands by while his father purchases their tickets.
Pencille arrived a few minutes later and all three walk over the footbridge from platform two to the London-bound platform one.
When their train pulls up they get on through separate doors but cross paths in the aisle when they turn in towards each other.
Mr Pomeroy remains standing as Pencille walks by and both men exchange looks before the IT consultant takes his seat, jurors heard.
Following a brief exchange Mr Pomeroy can be seen on the carriage’s CCTV to get up and walk after Pencille, who was wearing a zipped-up jacket, sunglasses and hat.
Jurors were played footage of the two men walking through the carriage into the adjoining one before they stop and continue arguing in a standing area close to a set of doors.
Mr Pomeroy, at times clutching a piece of paper which he eventually places in his pocket, can variously be seen clinging onto the metal poles to keep his balance, pointing back over his shoulder and holding his palm up towards Pencille.
Other passengers described hearing him pressing for an apology, saying: ‘You shouldn’t have humiliated me in front of my kid.’
Pencille can then be seen pulling his phone out and holding it up to his ear, a call jurors were told he made to Mitchell warning: ‘I’m going to kill this man. He’ll be dead.’
Within 10 seconds of putting the phone away, Pencille had pulled out a knife.
Prosecutor Jacob Hallam QC told jurors the blade is visible on screen at 1.01.13pm before a bloodied Mr Pomeroy walks back down the carriage following a scuffle at 1.01.39pm.
‘So, we are dealing with an incident that lasts for about 25 seconds,’ he said to DC Marc Farmer, the British Transport Police officer who collected and complied the footage.
‘And the jury know that in that 25 seconds Lee Pomeroy sustained 18 knife injuries.’
DC Farmer commented that aside from the clear image of the first blow to Mr Pomeroy’s neck, it was initially difficult to determine the extent of the attack.
‘On my first viewing I didn’t know the number of injuries, but you can see from the footage motions towards various areas,’ he added.
It was only once the medical examination detailing all the separate wounds was completed that detectives were able to review the footage and identify some of the other blows.
‘It was a quick and frenzied attack,’ he added.
After the first blow had been struck, Mr Pomeroy could be seen struggling with Pencille, as blood quickly began to cover the floor around them.
Once they managed to separate one of the cameras clearly caught Mr Pomeroy’s bloodied face and torso as he walked back down the carriage and sat down.
As he did so Pencille could be seen picked up his phone, hat and glasses before jumping off the train a few moments later when it stopped at Clandon.
The court heard he was picked up soon after by Mitchell and whisked down to Chichester later that evening where she bought him a set of clippers from a Tesco Extra along with razors and food bits including fruit juice, some mac and cheese, a packet of Quavers and a Pot Noodle.
Pencille, of no fixed address, denies murder while Mitchell, from Farnham in Surrey, denies assisting an offender.
A fellow passenger, sitting with her husband on their way to visit family, told jurors they fled the carriage as the fight broke out because she ‘felt quite scared for my life’.
Megan and Christopher Fieberg were sitting across from each other in a bank of four seats as Pencille came into their carriage, followed closely by Mr Pomeroy, the court heard.?
‘They came in basically one after the other and they were arguing already when they came into our carriage,’ Mrs Fieberg said.
‘It was pretty loud.’
She added: ‘The victim carried on saying “Please, I want you to apologise to me because you humiliated me in front of my child” and then the defendant carried on saying “Touch me, touch me, I dare you. You’ll see what happens at the next station”.’
Both described Pencille as appearing angry, with Mr Pomeroy also quite annoyed.
Jurors heard the former called the IT consultant a ‘c**t’ and a ‘pu**y’ during the row as they moved through the carriage.
‘He was quite angry,’ Mrs Fieberg said, adding: ‘I would say aggressive.’
Referring to Mr Pomeroy, she added: ‘He was obviously a bit angry, but he tried to calm down the black man so that they obviously didn’t get into a physical fight.
‘He just wanted an apology from the black man.
‘He just wanted to talk and get an apology out of him.’
Mr Hallam asked: ‘Did there come a point where you and your husband decided that you did not want to stay in the carriage anymore?’
Mrs Fieberg nodded that there was: ‘Because I felt quite scared for my life.’
Her husband similarly told jurors they walked out ‘for my safety and my wife’s safety’.
She told jurors Pencille looked as if he ‘wanted to have a fight’ and described how she saw the pair of them ‘holding each other by the collars of their shirts’ as she and her husband left.
But during cross-examination by Pencille’s barrister Justin Rouse QC, Mrs Fieberg recalled hearing him twice telling Mr Pomeroy to ‘leave me alone’ as they entered the carriage.
Both Mr and Mrs Fieberg also conceded his assertion that Pencille was ‘retreating’ through the carriage and ‘fled backwards’ while the father ‘was going after him’.?
A 17-year-old boy earlier told jurors he got on at the same station as both Pomeroys and Pencille but walked ahead through to the next carriage before they came through ‘shouting at each other’.
‘They went past me and carried on walking down towards the doors of my carriage,’ he said.
‘I paused my headphones to see what was going on and I could hear things quite clearly.’
The boy similarly recalled Pencille telling Mr Pomeroy to ‘leave me alone’ as well as calling him ‘racist’.
‘Once it stopped, I thought it was quite unusual, so I turned around to see what was going on and saw them fighting each other,’ he said.
‘They were both kind of grabbing each other from the shoulders and pushing each other.’
Describing how the argument first started, Mr Pomeroy’s 14-year-old son told detectives in a videoed interview shown to jurors that his father perhaps ‘took too long’ taking his seat and Pencille was ‘a bit impatient’ when going past.
‘The guy was walking towards my dad,’ he said.
‘I would say he was walking really briskly, he didn’t even stop, but he said “Ignorance is a bliss” as my dad sat down.
‘Then my dad said “Shut up” sarcastically.’
He added that they traded another barb he couldn’t quite make out before Pencille said: ‘Suck your mum.’
‘My dad said “I did yours last night”,’ the boy continued.
‘I think that annoyed the guy because the guy said: “Come off, get off at the next station”, stuff like that.’
Jurors heard Mr Pomeroy told Pencille ‘You’re threatening me’ as he immediately got up to follow, fist clenched.
The boy told officers he didn’t follow the men through the carriages but thought he could hear them shouting as they went.
He conceded his father could be quite ‘menacing’ due to his height and observed that he was bigger than Pencille.
Jurors heard he saw other passengers fleeing the carriage as the row raged on but ‘didn’t actually see them throwing punches’.
As they left, the boy said one of them remarked: ‘This is why I hate travelling on f**king trains.’
‘I didn’t see the stabbing whatsoever,’ he said.
‘When I walked up, I could see the blood, so I was OK that looks pretty bad.’
By the time he reached his father he was already slumped in a chair covered in blood following the alleged attack.
‘I asked my dad what happened,’ he continued.
‘My dad just leaned back and said “He punched me”. My dad wasn’t even looking at me.’
He described how if someone said something to his father, he ‘won’t let it go’.
But he added that he would ‘never really start something like that himself’ and would normally only fight someone who did something wrong and he was trying to stop it.
