Two men have been jailed for a brutal stabbing of a waiter who attempted to return a lost phone at Whitstable railway station. Lewis Day, 26, and Daryl Brown, 33, chased and repeatedly stabbed the victim, leaving him for dead in an alleyway on December 16, 2023.
The incident began when the victim, a man in his 50s, picked up a phone left on his platform by a female friend of the offenders. As he tried to return it, Brown mistakenly believed he was stealing it and threw a beer can at him. The victim threw it back, prompting Day and Brown to chase him from the station into a nearby alleyway, where they stabbed him multiple times.
The pair returned to the station, where a witness overheard them arguing about the stabbing. The witness then discovered the victim in the alleyway and called for help. Emergency services took the victim to a London hospital with serious injuries.
Police arrested Day on a train, where he still had blood on him, and Brown at the station. Both were charged after CCTV and witness accounts were gathered. At Canterbury Crown Court, Day was found guilty of causing grievous bodily harm with intent, and Brown of unlawful wounding.
On November 26, 2024, Day was sentenced to 14 and a half years in prison, with an additional three and a half years on licence. Brown received three and a half years. Detective Constable Matthew Burridge praised the witness's actions, noting that without his intervention, the assault could have been fatal.
