the times | Wednesday October 14 2020 1GM 23
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PULLOUT
THE TABLE
Ex-rugby player killed in fight over spitting
sive wounds on his hands, Inner
London crown court heard.
Mr Lall, who denies murder, had not
been taking his medication for schizo-
phrenia and was drunk, according to
blood test results read to the court. The
pair had argued and scuffled before a
tussle in which Mr Isichei was stabbed.
The victim disarmed his attacker and
staggered along the road before
leaning against a car, using his
fading strength to ring a neigh-
bour’s doorbell and collapsing.
Anthony Orchard, QC, for
the prosecution, played
CCTV footage of the inci-
dent to the jury. After a
clip that showed the
men fighting on the
ground, Mr Or-
chard said: “Allan
Isichei stood up,
staggered a few pac-
es, leant against a
parked car. He had
managed, by this
stage, to disarm Gur-
jeet Lall and he now had
the knife in his hands.
“You will see him throwthe knife away behind him. He
managed to stagger about 30 or 40
metres along towards his home address
and police managed to find a large
amount of blood. It appears he realises
he is not going to make it home so he
went to number 12. He managed to ring
the doorbell and then he collapsed. He
was about 30 metres from his home
address.”
After the fight officers managed to
track the defendant, who had also been
injured, by following a trail of his blood
back to his home, also just minutes
from the scene of the tussle.
When they got to his house he was
holding his face, which had sustainedinjuries. When officers arrested him on
suspicion of attempted murder he alle-
gedly said: “He attacked me. He was
pinning me down, he’s a big guy and he
was on my leg.”
The court was told that investigators
who searched his father’s flat, where he
was living, found unopened boxes of
schizophrenia medicine. Offices recov-
ered his phone, on which they discov-
ered 100 “offensive” texts sent over the
past 24 hours, which might “demon-
strate a psychiatric issue”.
Mr Orchard told the court that Mr
Lall had given a prepared statement in
a police interview where he claimed he
acted in self-defence. The statementexplained how the defendant was
waiting for his father to help him
unload shopping when he was ap-
proached by Mr Isichei who challenged
him about spitting on the pavement. In
the statement, Mr Lall said spitting was
a “habit” he had, adding: “A man was
walking past. He was upset that I spat
on the floor. He was bigger than me, he
was being very aggressive. He then
instigated an argument.”
Concluding his opening statement,
Mr Orchard said: “The prosecution
case is that the defendant simply
attacked Allan Isichei and cannot claim
to have acted in lawful self-defence.”
The trial continues.John Simpson Crime Correspondent
A former rugby player was stabbed to
death yards from his front door after
challenging a schizophrenic knifeman
about spitting on the pavement, a court
was told yesterday.
Allan Isichei, 69, who played as a prop
for Wasps in the 1970s and 1980s, was
allegedly attacked by Gurjeet Lall no
more than 150 metres from his home in
Southall, west London. Mr Isi-
chei, who was walking home
from a pub, where he had
drunk a single bottle of beer
on a sunny August bank holi-
day afternoon, could not be
saved despite the efforts of
neighbours and paramedics. The
married father of three was stabbed
in the torso and head and had defen-
Allan Isichei was
at Wasps in the
1970s and 1980sThe financial controller of a company
that supplies parts for Formula One
cars stole £700,000 from the business
and spent £114,000 of it on Amazon.
Lindsay Caldicott, 52, bought a
second home in Filey, on the North
Yorkshire coast, holidays abroad and
three Dyson hairdryers while working
for SPA Technique in Staffordshire.
She was caught when the company
discovered fake invoices that allowed
her to steal up to £12,000 a month for
several years. The financial losses
forced the company to cut jobs.
Caldicott, from Burton upon Trent,
was jailed for 16 months at Stafford
Manager at F1 supplier stole
£700,000 for life in fast lane
crown court on Friday after admitting
the theft of £692,000.
Richard Barnes, 71, the chairman of
SPA Technique, had worked with Cal-
dicott for 24 years. “I’m godparent to
one of her youngest daughters,” he said.
“Yet we discovered she was stealing at
the rate of between £8,000 and £12,000
a month. We can only go back to 2009
as the police could only prosecute from
then. But we can see losses that go far
beyond that — losses in the million-
pound bracket. I trusted her with every-
thing I had. She was on £38,000 for a
30-hour week... but she was spending
money off the scale.”
Caldicott has been forced to repay
back some of the stolen cash.Neil Johnston