UK (Parliament Politics Magazine) – A man who used his car as a weapon in a racist and homophobic Christmas Day attack in central London has been convicted of murder, police confirmed.
When Anthony Gilheaney, 31, mounted the pavement with his Mercedes while enraptured, he constantly ran over individualities.
He was set up guilty of killing 25- years-old Aiden Chapman, who was hit by Gilheaney’s vehicle and suffered severe brain damage.
In the early hours of Christmas Day 2024, a couple in London’s West End who were returning home from night mass were also attacked.
The jury was shown intimidating, heroic, and hopeless events as one joe used his own body to cover his mate from being hit by the auto.
The rampage only came to an end when Gilheaney crashed his car while driving at over 100 mph to avoid the police, gravely injuring four more persons.
After a trial at the Old Bailey, he was found guilty on Friday of murder, attempted murder, and wounding with intent.
He drove at Miguel Waihrich while he was ministering to his injured partner, Basbus-Garcia, and struck Marcelo Basbus-Garcia after reversing into him at a high speed. While Basbus-Garcia was unconscious and “covered in blood,” Waihrich told the jury that he made eye contact with Gilheaney as he drove at them a second time.
Waihrich said:
“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’t stop.”
After attending midnight mass in Piccadilly, the couple was on Great Windmill Street when they noticed Gilheaney yelling in the middle of the road while completely nude. After getting into his car and driving away, Gilheaney came back and made his way over to the pair.
Waihrich told the court:
“It was very high speed, the way he reversed. It was so fast every person in that street was in panic – we started to run.”
People ran for their lives as Basbus-Garcia was knocked to the ground. He told the Old Bailey:
“The car came after me – but it would be fair to say that he [Gilheaney] was after everybody in that street. The last thing I remember was being hit by the car. The last thing I remember, actually, is being terrified.”
He told the court:
“He [Gilheaney] stopped and looked at me. He is coming in my direction, I try to make signs, gesture and say: ‘Stop it, please.’ The car doesn’t stop and accelerated towards us, and I decided to protect Marcelo’s head with my body as a shield. I’m just counting the seconds before the final attack.”
The attack on Waihrich and Basbus-Garcia was “clearly a homophobic attack,” according to prosecutor Crispin Aylett KC. Later, while Chapman and his friend Tyrone Itorho were crossing Shaftesbury Avenue, Gilheaney ran into them.
Chapman was slung into the air after being hit by the auto, and he passed away in the sanitarium on New Year’s Eve. His brain damage was supposed” unsurvivable” by medical professionals.
Gilheaney, who had been intoxicated, had yelled ethnic epithets at an Asian joe before crashing into him, getting out of his auto, and assaulting him.
A family pushing a toddler in a stroller had to flee as he smashed into a hack and also climbed the sidewalk. Three individuals managed to get down by cascading themselves to the wall.
In between using his automobile as a weapon, Gilheaney was “ping-ponging from side to side along the street,” according to a witness.
When tested many hours later, his blood alcohol content was nearly 1.5 times the legal limit, and it’s estimated that he struck victims at pets exceeding 30 mph. He left Bar Rumba at around 12.40 a.m. on Christmas morning after having a drink there. Gilheaney was” veritably angry, his whole body was tense and primed,” according to a substantiation.
There were mixer barrels and alcohol bottles, including vodka, each over the bottom of his Mercedes.
Gilheaney was disqualified doubly, including during the attacks, and has six citations for reckless driving between March 2012 and 2023.
Harlow, Essex resident Gilheaney had denied killing anyone. The judge will determine the minimum time he must serve before being eligible for release. He faces a mandatory life sentence.
Did the prosecution present motive evidence of hate crime?
The execution presented strong motive substantiation classifying the attacks as hate crimes, supported by substantiated evidence of Gilheaney’s supremacist and homophobic slurs cried during the rage.
CCTV captured Gilheaney targeting a gay couple holding hands, yellinganti-LGBTQ abuse before accelerating into Aidan Chapman; he also assaulted a Black man with ethnic epithets like” go back to Africa,” proving bias under UK condemning guidelines( Section 66 Condemning Act 2020).
This substantiation elevated charges to racially/ sexually irritated offenses, with the jury convicting on murder despite Gilheaney’s denial; sentencing on January 30, 2026, will reflect hate aggravation, likely extending his minimal term significantly.
