A father and son from Suffolk have been convicted of murder after they chased and stabbed a suspected thief in a vigilante attack. David King, 55, and his 19-year-old son Edward King were found guilty by a unanimous jury at Ipswich Crown Court on Monday.
The attack occurred in the early hours of 20 June last year in Bury St Edmunds. The pair confronted Neil Charles, 47, after seeing him trying car door handles and house door handles on CCTV. They armed themselves with a double-edged knife and a 27-inch ninja sword before pursuing him.
Charles suffered a 12cm stab wound to the chest and died in hospital two days later. A pathologist confirmed the fatal wound was caused by David King's knife. Edward King's sword caused a horizontal wound above the victim's left knee and slashed his bicycle tyre.
During the trial, the court heard that David King called police at 3.55am claiming he had injured a thief who ran into his knife. Both defendants denied murder, but the jury rejected their accounts. Text messages revealed a fascination with weapons and a desire to take the law into their own hands following a spate of local thefts.
The Kings have been remanded in custody and will be sentenced at a later date. Detective Chief Inspector Chris Burgess said: 'This was a brutal and unnecessary attack that could have been avoided by simply calling the police.'
