In pale autumn sunshine, two small children on scooters rattle along uneven paving stones past the house where Bijan Ebrahimi once lived. The planters full of blooms and the hanging baskets that he tended lovingly are long gone. The front window that he had peered out of in terror as locals stood baying for his blood is now covered by a screen of corrugated steel.
This bleak courtyard in inner city Bristol, surrounded by a block of council maisonettes and with an old trampoline rotting in the middle, was where, in the early hours of July 14, an innocent man became the victim of mob rule. In an act of savagery almost unthinkable in modern Britain, he was attacked in his home, beaten unconscious and then dragged out to a nearby front garden, his body doused in white spirit and set alight.
This week, the shocking details of the crime have begun to emerge after Lee James and Stephen Norley, both 24, who lived near Mr Ebrahimi, admitted their part in the attack at Bristol Crown Court. James has pleaded guilty to murder while Norley has denied murder but admitted assisting his co-accused.
Mr Ebrahimi, 44, who was originally from Iran, was a shy man. Few people in the block on Capgrave Crescent, Brislington, where he had lived for the past three years, had heard him utter a word before his desperate screams for help that warm summer night. Registered disabled and unable to work, his joys in life were his garden and his tabby cat. But his differences made him stand out. He was bullied by neighbours and tormented by teenagers who vandalised his garden.
When he attempted to take photographs of youngsters destroying the flowers in his pots and hanging baskets to show the police he was branded a paedophile. He turned to the police for help and phoned them on July 11. But instead Mr Ebrahimi was arrested on suspicion of a breach of the peace in front of a mob of around 20 children and adults who screamed “paedo, paedo” as he was led away. He was released without charge the next day. But rumours continued to circulate and two days later some of his neighbours came for him. Last month, a spokesman for Avon and Somerset police reiterated Mr Ebrahimi’s innocence: “We can categorically state he had not taken any indecent images and that nothing of concern had been found on his computer.”
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21 Oct 2013This week, a 58-year-old retired bricklayer who says he was Mr Ebrahimi’s only real friend in the area, said: “It was like throwing him into the lions’ den.” He and his wife, who like many I spoke to asked not to be named, live in nearby Broomhill Road. They got to know the man they affectionately nicknamed “Ben” by coaxing conversation out of him as he waited at the bus stop on occasional trips into town. He spoke very little due to a mental disability, it is claimed, but as he began to trust them he would drop by for cups of tea once a week on Thursdays or Fridays. He had paid a brief visit the night before he was killed.
“All he would say about it was he had some trouble,” says the friend. “He wasn’t scared but he was definitely intimidated. He said he had trouble before with people there. I just told him to take no notice. He didn’t deserve that. It was devastating to find out
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