An Old Bailey judge yesterday sentenced Dajour Jones to a minimum term of 27 years in prison for the murder of 20-year-old Jamie Gilbey in an Upper Norwood hostel last year.
Caught in the act: the Old Bailey was shown Jones on his hostel’s CCTV, leaving with the large suitcase he used to dispose of Gilbey’s body parts
During the trial, Jones, 27, was described as “violent and dangerous” after the court was told how he had repeatedly stabbed Gilbey to death in a “sustained and brutal” attack and dumped his dismembered body in bin bags in a nearby park.
Jones refused to attend sentencing in person or by video link from Belmarsh Prison. Judge Nigel Lickley KC said Jones’s “antics and tantrums” during proceedings showed “utter contempt” for the court and had been intended to “manipulate the system”.
Charlene Baxter, Gilbey’s mother, told the court how her son’s death had left her heart “sunken and broken in half”. Her younger children “keep asking if the bad man is coming to get them”.
Murdered: Jamie Gilbey
“The world keeps turning but my soul is hollow and barren,” Baxter said.
The trial heard the two men had been living at the same hostel at the time of the murder. Staff at the Fitze Millennium Centre told the court that no one had expected the two men to become friends.
Prosecutor Simon Denison KC told the jury Mr Gilbey was a “very vulnerable, physically unimposing 20-year-old man who above all wanted to have friends”.
Gilbey had learning difficulties and had reportedly been exploited by individuals at his previous housing facility for money, jurors were told.
He had been out on bail for an attempted robbery but otherwise had no convictions, warnings or reprimands, police said.
Jones had a history of violence and had been on licence at the time of Gilbey’s killing for attacking a man in a cycle shop in London Bridge with a broken bottle, the court was told.
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