A son who stabbed to death his West End restaurant owner father was jailed for 13-and-a -half years at the Old Bailey today.
David West, 70, was knifed through the neck and chest as he lay in a drunken stupor at the bottom of the stairs at his Jermyn Street home.
He had made millions in booze cruises but lost the lot in restaurants around Piccadilly and was drinking heavily.
His son, David West Jr, was in awe of him and was the “whipping boy” for his father’s foul tongue and verbal abuse for over 30 years.
When his father sacked him, he struck out from “a justifiable sense of being wrong.”
West Jr, 45, pleaded not guilty to murder and a jury in September failed to reach a verdict and was discharged.
He admitted manslaughter on the grounds that he had lost his self-control over his father’s behaviour and prosecuted his plea today.
Sentencing, the Recorder of London Nicholas Hilliard QC said “there must have been a slow burn to this all.”
He added: “It’s clear you suffered verbal abuse and aggression from your father for many years.
“He had a short temper and while he could be equally hard on other people, it must have been of a different order for anyone to be on the receiving end of such conduct for so long from their parent.”
The court heard that last December, Mr West Snr sacked his son and ordered him out of the flat above the Abracadabra restaurant, both of which the father owned, next to his own home.
An hour later – after another row about how much his son was owed – he was dead.
In that hour, West Jr had drunk several glasses of whisky then took the largest kitchen knife from his flat, provided by his father, and stabbed him.
The judge went on: “He was helpless and had no prospect of defending himself in any way at all.
“You left the knife in his chest and called the police admitting you had killed your father. You said you had done everyone a favour, he had deserved it and you were glad he was dead.”
Despite his comments immediately after the killing, West Jr has shown genuine remorse.
His counsel Orlando Pownall QC said he had suffered “belittling and contempt for 30 years in a toxic relationship with his father.”
“I was a momentary aberration born of long experience for many years,” said the QC.
West junior was jailed for 13 and a half years after admitting pleading guilty to manslaughter by reason of loss of control.
Sentencing today, the Recorder of London, Nicholas Hilliard QC, said: “It was clear that you suffered verbal abuse and verbal aggression from your father for many years.”
