{"id":642962,"date":"2025-12-19T21:40:19","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T21:40:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/642962\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T21:40:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T21:40:19","slug":"man-convicted-of-ramming-into-pedestrians-on-christmas-day-in-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/642962\/","title":{"rendered":"Man convicted of ramming into pedestrians on Christmas Day in London"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dec. 19 (UPI) &#8212; An English man was convicted of ramming his Mercedes into a crowd last Christmas Day, killing a young man and seriously injuring four others in a &#8220;drunken rage&#8221; in London.<\/p>\n<p>Anthony Gilheaney, 31, of Longfield, Harlow, was found guilty of murder, attempted murder and wounding with intent after a trial at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.upi.com\/topic\/Old_Bailey\/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Old Bailey\" class=\"tpstyle\" rel=\"noopener\">Old Bailey<\/a>. Sentencing has been set for Jan. 19, <a href=\"https:\/\/news.met.police.uk\/news\/man-convicted-of-murdering-aiden-chapman-on-christmas-day-504632\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Metropolitan Police said<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n<p>He faces a mandatory life sentence, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/uk-news\/2025\/dec\/19\/man-who-mowed-down-london-pedestrians-on-christmas-day-convicted-murder\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the Guardian reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Gilheaney got behind the wheel of his car in a drunken rage, determined to inflict as much damage as possible,&#8221; Detective Chief Inspector Wayne Jolley, who led the investigation of the crash in London&#8217;s West End. &#8220;He targeted innocent people, who were out celebrating Christmas Day and killed 25-year-old Aiden Chapman.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>At 12:45 a.m., officers were called to Shaftesbury Avenue after reports of a collision and a car driving on the wrong side of the road.<\/p>\n<p>Four pedestrians were taken to a hospital. Chpan died from his brain injuries on New Year&#8217;s Eve.<\/p>\n<p>Injured were a couple on their way home from Midnight mass.<\/p>\n<p>At about 30 mph, his car struck Marcelo Basbus-Garcia after reversing at high speed, and he also drove at Miguel Waihrich while he was tending to his injured partner.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I remember his eyes and the position of his hands on the wheel, I remember his face and me crying for him to stop, and he didn&#8217;t stop,&#8221; Waihrich told the court. &#8220;It was so fast. Every person in that street was in panic &#8212; we started to run.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutor Crispin Aylett said the attack on Waihrich and Basbus-Garcia was &#8220;clearly a homophobic attack.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Police said he drove more than 100 mph in eluding them until he crashed his car.<\/p>\n<p>Gilheaney was located in Lincoln&#8217;s Inn Fields by City of London Police around 20 minutes after the collision.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Gilheaney was swiftly arrested, and our officers have worked relentlessly to hold him accountable for his actions,&#8221; Jolley said. &#8220;Throughout the investigation, he has refused to acknowledge the seriousness of his offenses, making every attempt to portray himself as a troubled victim. I commend the jury for seeing through this act.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>He also crashed into a taxi, then mounted the pavement where a family pushing a child in a pushchair had to run to get out of the way. Three people escaped by pinning themselves against a wall.<\/p>\n<p>Gilheaney, before the rampage, shouted racial abuse at an Asian man before driving into him, then getting out of his car and attacking him.<\/p>\n<p>He was charged Dec. 27 with four counts of attempted murder, causing serious injury by driving while disqualified, driving a motor vehicle dangerously and possession of a bladed article in a public place. After Aiden&#8217;s death, Gilheaney was further charged with murder.<\/p>\n<p>Several hours after the rampage, his tested blood alcohol level was more than 1 1\/2 times the legal limit. He drank at a bar and alcohol bottles were found on the car&#8217;s floor, including mixer cans.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;No parent should have to go through the hellish trauma of losing a child. Words cannot describe the pain and anguish Anthony Gilheaney has caused us by his evil actions,&#8221; Aiden&#8217;s family said. &#8220;No amount of justice or prison time will ever be enough to compensate for our loss.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Gilheaney has taken the best part of us. He has left us with a dark void in our lives that can never be filled. He took our only son from us. Something we will never get over. Something we will never forgive.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>From 2012 to 2023, Gilheaney accumulated six convictions for dangerous driving and had been disqualified twice, including at the time of the attacks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dec. 19 (UPI) &#8212; An English man was convicted of ramming his Mercedes into a crowd last Christmas&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":642963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,393,4884,95246,257,32686,2582,16,15,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-642962","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-law-and-crime","12":"tag-london","13":"tag-old-bailey","14":"tag-top-news","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115748407138449886","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=642962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/642963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}