This is the face of the man from Swansea who went to London and stabbed a random stranger to death on a crowded shopping street.
Tedi Fanta armed himself with a knife and travelled to the capital in July 2021 where he carried out a frenzied attack on a passer-by on the city's bustling Oxford Street. At the time of the attack the 27-year-old was on police bail having been arrested a few weeks earlier for possession of a saw on Swansea's Carmarthen Road.
Fanta was unfit to stand trial for murder having been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia but a jury at the Old Bailey found he committed the acts alleged in what is known as a trial of issue.
Fanta jumped on his victim, 60-year-old retired civil servant Stephen Dempsey, outside the Microsoft store on the famous London shopping street and repeatedly stabbed him in a "ferocious" and unprovoked attack. The knife-wielding attacker was bravely tackled by two passing skateboarders who hit him with their boards and helped to disarm and restrain him. Despite the best efforts of medics Belfast-born Mr Dempsey died of his wounds in hospital.
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Prosecutor Caroline Carberry KC told the court "He [Fanta] is seen carrying out a ferocious, random and unprovoked attack on a helpless and unsuspecting member of the public. His victim could have been anyone who was in close proximity to him during the course of that day in central London. Sadly for Stephen Dempsey and his family, it was him."
The court heard Fanta was born in Eritrea in East African and was conscripted into the army aged 12 or 13. In the years of conflict that followed the defendant was shot and tortured. He eventually sought sanctuary in the UK in 2014 and was granted refugee status and settled in Swansea but his barrister Patrick Upward KC told the court "by then the damage had been done". Mr Upward described Fanta as a "very, very ill young man".
Judge Michael Topolski KC said it was "very concerning" that Fanta’s mental health condition had not picked up despite numerous court appearances in Swansea over a number of years for offences including criminal damage and assaulting police officers. He said: "This defendant slipped through the system unnoticed, uncared for, untreated and very dangerous."
Tedi Fanta, of Heol Awstin, Ravenhill, Swansea, will be sentenced at a later date.
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