Published: 25 May, 2012
by DAVID ST GEORGE

THE knife attacker who killed grandad Alan Smith was a walking timebomb, jurors at the Old Bailey heard yesterday (Thursday).

Mr Smith, 63, a keen sportsman, spent 30 years with his partner Denise in Eden Grove, Holloway, before they moved to Leyton, where he died at the hands of a stranger.

Father-of-three Mr Smith was arranging a family birthday meal for daughter Estelle, 41, at a café close to his new home when he had a minor exchange of words with martial arts expert Matthew Quesada, 26, who ran off to his home nearby to collect a knife.

Prosecutor Roger Smart said Mr Smith had not met jobless father-of-two Quesada before they had a disagreement when Mr Smith innocently asked about the welfare of his crying three-year-old daughter on March 26 last year.

As Mr Smith, Denise, Estelle and her husband Mark Jenkins settled down to enjoy their meal Quesada, without uttering a word, rushed their table and launched a ferocious attack.

Quesada denies murder, claiming manslaughter by diminished responsibility of unsound mind.

With him in the dock is his mother Victoria, 55, and girlfriend Maria Brigitte, 26, the mother of his children, who deny assisting him to evade capture.

Psychiatrists told the jury yesterday that Quesada had had serious mental and psychiatric problems from an
early age and had started hearing voices, seeing demons and dragons.

He had threatened to scald himself with a kettle of boiling water and had a severe anti-social personality which could trigger an outbreak of temper and violence at the drop of a hat.

Professor Nigel Eastman, one of four psychiatrists who have interviewed Quesada while in Broadmoor maximum security hospital, Berkshire, said that he had a very troubled childhood with a violent father who exerted “extreme power” over the family. They were terrified of him.

The trial may conclude next week.