SMIRKING and making an obscene gesture, this is the teenage killer posing just an hour after knifing George Osborne’s aide to death in his own home.
Ben Bamford, 18, has been found guilty of murdering George Osborne’s adviser at his country cottage after meeting on gay dating website Grindr.
Bamford killed 52-year-old Paul Jefferies in a “sustained attack” at his property in Coggins Mill Lane, Mayfield, East Sussex, on February 23 – which saw the high-ranking civil servant injured over 40 times.
The jury was told the teenager, who was 17 at the time of the killing, had run up a large drugs debt.
In the days before the attack Bamford had received a series of texts from his drug dealer demanding he pay the debt.
With just days to raise the cash the teenager went round to Mr Jefferies remote cottage in Mayfield, East Sussex in the hope of getting money from him to help pay off the debt.
But a row broke out and Bamford seized a kitchen knife and stabbed the tax advisermore than 40 times.
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Openly gay Mr Jefferies, a senior HMRC official who had reportedly advised ex-chancellor George Osborne’s Treasury team, had his throat slashed and thumb almost severed – and was left to die in a pool of his own blood.
Lewes Crown Court heard how police alerted by worried colleagues found blood-covered Mr Jefferies lying naked on his kitchen floor with a tea towel over his head.
Prosecutor Jeremy Carter-Manning QC said Bamford had “sought out” Mr Jefferies on the night he was killed after Bamford had built up drugs debts of around £400.
Opening the Crown’s case, Mr Carter-Manning said: “Unknown to Mr Jefferies, Benjamin Bamford was desperate for money, say the prosecution.
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“He had involvement in drugs and a drug debt at the time of £400 or so, and was being pressurised by a known person who supplied drugs.”
Bamford, from Crowborough, denied murder, claiming he was protecting himself from Mr Jefferies after he had “come on to him”.
He told the court he had attacked Mr Jefferies with a knife in self-defence, claiming the tax adviser was having sex with him and he had asked him to stop and he wouldn’t.
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He claimed he told him he had to use the toilet and went downstairs but found all the doors locked and realised he had left his mobile phone upstairs.
Bamford said he had grabbed a kitchen knife because he was scared and gone back to retrieve his belongings.
But Mr Carter-Manning QC said Bamford had specifically gone round to get money from Mr Jefferies.
He said: “He was someone who was going to get his money. This defendant had to pay.”
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After he was discharged from hospital Bamford had a row with his mother at home where he confessed to attacking a man in his home.
Detective Superintendent Adam Hibbert said: “This was a horrific attack by a teenage boy who preyed on his victim with the aim of exploiting him for money.
“The level of violence he inflicted on Paul Jefferies was extreme and then he himself fled from the scene in the victim’s own car.
“He showed no remorse and indeed is smirking for a selfie photo taken an hour or so later.”
Bamford will be sentenced next Wednesday.
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