From February 2012
A football fan was stabbed to death with a broken golf club outside a pub showing a Spurs vs Arsenal match, the Old Bailey heard.
Samuel Fitzgerald, 20, suffered a fatal wound to the heart as his brother bought a round of drinks at the bar in Islington, north London.
His alleged attacker, 22 year-old Anthony Leader, then fled the scene while Mr Fitzgerald was tended to by an off-duty police officer.
The fight erupted just minutes after patrons at the Thornhill Arms in Islington, north London, began watching the game at 8pm on April 14, 2010.
Crispin Aylett QC, prosecuting, said the brawl took place ‘in front of a crowd of people.’
‘It began as a fistfight – a so-called one-on-one – with each as willing as the other to take part,’ he said.
‘However, after a while, whether because he was losing or simply wanted to bring the fight to an end, the defendant picked up a golf club that was lying on the ground.
‘He struck Samuel Fitzgerald with such force that it snapped in half. The fight continued and to onlookers it might have seemed they were simply trading punches.
‘But the defendant was using the jagged edges of the broken shaft of that golf club as if it was a dagger. He stabbed Samuel Fitzgerald in the chest and pushed it in to a depth of 15 centimetres.’
Mr Fitzgerald, who lived with his mother in the nearby Priory Heights estate, had turned up at the pub to watch the match with older brother Anthony, who sometimes performed there as a DJ.
Referred to as ‘loud and bouncy’ by his family, and by others as ‘mad Sam’, jurors heard he suffered from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
‘Anthony says Samuel could not sit still and he kept getting up and going outside,’ said Mr Aylett.
‘At one point, Anthony saw Samuel on the corner of the street, across the road from the public house.
‘It was on that corner that somebody had left a golf club lying around, and, according to Anthony, Samuel was swinging it – just picking up pebbles and pieces of litter.’
After a few minutes, Mr Fitzgerald crossed the road and dumped the still-intact driver on the pavement outside the pub.
Witnesses saw a black VW Golf allegedly containing Leader, then aged 20, and friend Daniel O’Brien park up outside the pub, with both men coming inside and lingering near the entrance before leaving again.
Moments later, Leader and Fitzgerald, by now topless, were seen punching each other in the street, the court heard.
Mr Aylett said: ‘At first it had just been pushing and shoving, and then for some reason they separated.
‘The reason may have been that a police car had driven past at that point.’
As Leader picked up the golf club, one spectator was heard to shout ‘put it down, don’t use it – have a fair fight’, jurors heard.
Leader then hit Mr Fitzgerald so hard with the metal driver than it snapped in two, it is claimed.
Anthony Fitzgerald, who had been at the bar ordering a round of drinks as the two men fought, had been unaware of the scrap, said Mr Aylett.
‘The fight seems to have taken place at around 8.06pm, and 10 minutes into the match Tottenham Hotspur scored,’ he said.
‘It was over by the point that goal was scored.’
Mr Fitzgerald was pronounced dead following surgery at the Royal London Hospital later that day at 10.30pm.
A post-mortem examination showed the golf club had entered the left side of his chest, passing through his ribs, diaphragm, spleen, stomach and aorta.
