Man found guilty of murdering Harry Potter actorTeenager who had just completed part in film was stabbed five times outside bar.
A knife attacker has been found guilty at the Old Bailey of murdering a teenage actor who had just completed a part in the latest Harry Potter film during a fight outside a bar last May.
Karl Bishop, 22, who had denied the charge, armed himself with two kitchen knives and lashed out at bystanders, his face "screwed up in rage", after being involved in a scuffle at the Metro bar in Sidcup, south London, earlier in the evening. He will be sentenced tomorrow.
Rob Knox, 18, who had played the part of Marcus Belby in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was stabbed five times, once fatally in a main artery, as he tried to protect his younger brother, Jamie, from Bishop's attack. He died in hospital later that evening.
Brian Altman QC, prosecuting, said: "Unhappily, his courage and his sense of duty were to cost him his life." He said Knox's life, full of promise, had been brought to an end by a "habitual knife carrier" who thought of stabbing people as an "occupational hazard". Bishop had previous convictions for knife crime.
Bishop's violent rage led him to attack Knox and a number of his friends. As he was arrested, he begged police to save him from the angry crowd that had surrounded him, then winked and smiled as he was led away. He claimed it was his victims who had been "going mad", and that it was their fault for "running into" his knife.
A police officer said Bishop showed no remorse after his arrest, saying "Yeah, sweet" when told Knox had died. He had seemed more bothered about missing a Ricky Hatton boxing match, the officer said.
Altman told the court: "This man carries knives like others carry pens in their pockets and quite happily thinks little or nothing of stabbing others as if it were some occupational hazard."
After his arrest, Bishop bragged of how he had been in prison before and jail simply meant free meals and free use of the gym.
Bishop said he had been "quite angry" about what happened the week before, when he claimed he had been punched to the floor and stamped on outside the Metro bar.
On the night of the stabbing, he said, he had not wanted to go back there but was persuaded to by his friends. He said he was "merry drunk". After getting into another fight, he went back to his home to fetch two knives.
He told the court: "I took two because two was scarier than one and I was angry at that time. I just wanted to scare whoever was down there. I wasn't really thinking that straight at the time because I was so angry, pissed off."
Bishop admitted that the "red mist" had descended and he had not cared what happened. He claimed in court to now have "big regrets" but was accused of being "not the slightest bit bothered" by the prosecution as he seemed unfazed, even belching as he gave evidence in front of the jury.
He said: "You wouldn't think people would run at someone who's got a knife. My aim was to scare people away from me and then, as they kept running at me, the knife was catching them while they kept running into it."
As well as the murder charge, Bishop was found guilty of wounding Rob's friend Dean Saunders, 23.
He was found guilty on majority verdicts of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm to Charlie Grimley, 17, and Nicky Jones, 20. He was also found guilty by a majority of wounding Andrew Dormer, 17, but cleared of wounding another friend, Tom Hopkins, 19.
Dormer had tried to disarm Bishop but was stabbed in the chest, while Jones was knifed in the hand and Grimley in the face and arm. At one point, Bishop walked up to Mr Saunders with what his victim described as an "evil grin" and stabbed him in the neck, leaving him with permanent spinal damage.
Hopkins, at the time a Southend United youth team player, helped bundle Bishop into a flower bed and subdue him. He said Bishop had "looked like a madman" as he shouted and waved his knives around.
Pc Craig Reid had told the court that there "didn't appear to be any remorse" when Bishop was told of Knox's death, but later the killer had ranted: "I'm going to miss the fucking Hatton fight."
The officer said Bishop's stabbing frenzy had left a pool of blood "as far as my arms could stretch" on the pavement.
Bishop lived with his mother and brother and said in court he had not seen his father for about 16 years. He said he had been "very angry" as a child.
At the age of 15, he faced charges for threatening a youth he knew with a knife but the allegations were dropped when he appeared in court. In another confrontation later that year outside a cab office, he slashed the same youth and his friend, across the face, leaving one needing five stitches and the other with a cut on his nose. In May 2005, he pleaded guilty to wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and causing actual bodily harm.
He served time in prison until March 2007. After his release, he worked fitting air conditioning for a few months before being made redundant, and later worked occasionally as a window cleaner.
Bishop said he would drink "quite a lot" and was "drinking to get drunk".
By contrast, his victim had already embarked on a successful career as a juvenile actor. Knox had just finished filming his part in the Harry Potter film.
A keen rugby player, he had passed his A-levels and had a supportive family behind him. He had just been chosen for a part in a forthcoming film called King Arthur. Among hundreds who attended his funeral was Rupert Grint, who plays Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter series.
Knox has received a posthumous crime-fighting award after chasing a gang of thieves from Marks & Spencer at the Bluewater shopping centre in Kent in 2007. He had just bought a new car, a VW Golf, and was described by brother Jamie as "upbeat, very cheerful, always in a happy mood". He said his brother was "very protective" of him.
Their father, Colin Knox, who works in media production, said: "It's impossible to convey the sadness and loss that we feel, but we now realise Rob touched many people's lives." He said his son was "always the first person to stand up against wrong" and "achieved so much in his short life".
He added: "I like to think he was my friend as well as my son."
Colin Knox said he hoped the fact his son had a role in the Harry Potter film would help draw attention to the scourge of knife crime. "With knives, there are no winners and only losers," he said.