Minimum 40 years for Toni-Ann murderer
Joel Smith found guilty of double murder
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Friday, 04, Aug 2006 09:10
A 32-year-old man found guilty of the double murder of seven-year-old schoolgirl Toni-Ann Byfield and the man she knew as her father, Bertram Byfield, has been told he will serve a life sentence in prison for his crimes.
Joel Smith, a drug dealer of no fixed address, had denied shooting the pair in a bedsit in Kensal Green, north-west London, on September 14th 2003.
He was told at the Old Bailey in London today that he will serve a minimum of 40 years.
Mr Byfield, 41, who was a career criminal, was shot twice, once in the chest and once in the groin, while Toni-Ann, who witnessed the attack, was shot in the back from close range as she tried to run away.
After their deaths, it was revealed that Mr Byfield, whose real name was Antony Pinnock, was not Toni-Ann's biological father although she had always thought he was.
Speaking after today's decision, Detective Superintendent Neil Basu, of the Metropolitan police, who investigated the murder, said Smith "has shown no remorse" for his brutal crime and added that, despite the guilty verdict, "no one won here today".
"No one knows what happened in that bedsit in the early hours of the 14th September 2003 except for certain, Joel Smith," he said.
"Of one thing you can be sure - Toni-Ann was a complete innocent who was executed in cold blood - shot dead with a single bullet to the back and she cannot have known what for.
"Smith has shown no remorse. I sincerely hope he spends the next 30 years searching to understand the man he has become, and at some future point has the decency to tell us all why he committed this most evil of acts."
The court heard how Smith thought he had committed the perfect crime, leaving no DNA traces, no eyewitness sightings or CCTV images.
He was eventually caught after Merseyside police provided information that a man named Cain was responsible for the murders and had talked about it.
Following a BBC Crimewatch programme on September 15th 2005 and a press appeal by the Liverpool Daily Echo, the Met were led to Smith, who was in prison in Liverpool at the time, and he was arrested on October 11th and charged two days later.
A former cellmate and a former girlfriend of Smith both gave evidence in court telling how he spoke about the murder on several occasions.