Ex-prisoner jailed indefinitely for killing motorcyclist

A former Hunger Games-obsessed prisoner has been jailed indefinitely for the “senseless” killing of an elderly scooter rider five days after his release. Lee Byer was psychotic when he stabbed 87-year-old Thomas O’Halloran in the neck and chest in Greenford, West London, in August 2022.

He later repeatedly wrote about a “Hunger Games” scenario in which he was asked to meet “competitors” and then fight or attack, the Old Bailey was told. Five days before the murder, Byer, who had a string of convictions, was released from Wormwood Scrubs after serving a full 12-year sentence for robbery.

Prosecutor Gareth Patterson KC told the court: “Technically he was on bail when he was released in August 2022 so these offenses were committed on bail. A few months later, that charge was dropped.”

“From the accounts from his mother and brother, there was strange behaviour, but at that stage the full nature and extent of his mental illness had not been diagnosed.”

The 45-year-old, of no fixed address, denied murder but pleaded guilty to the lesser offense of manslaughter by diminished responsibility and possession of an offensive weapon.

The pleas were accepted by the prosecution after mental health reports found Byer was psychotic, hearing voices, suffering from paranoid delusions and paranoid schizophrenia.