Man who pushed a 91-year-old onto Tube track ‘took £600 of drugs’

A man who pushed a former Eurotunnel boss onto Tube tracks took crack cocaine worth £600 the day before, a court has heard.

Paul Crossley shoved Sir Robert Malpas at Marble Arch station in London’s West End on 27 April last year, his sentencing hearing was told.

The assault happened minutes after the 47-year-old attacked another man at nearby Tottenham Court Road station.

Sir Robert was saved by bystander Riyad El Hussani, who pulled him from danger only a minute before a train arrived.

The 91-year-old suffered a broken pelvis and a cut to the head that needed 12 stitches, while Mr El Hussani sustained a burn to his hand from an electrified rail.

Crossley, who said he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia when he was 17, was chased and detained by members of the public

Earlier that day, he tried to push Tobias French onto tracks but the victim fought him off – and Crossley then fled on a Central line Tube train.

Crossley, from Leyton, east London, said he had taken crack cocaine the previous day and was feeling paranoid as he made his way to the West End to get coffee.

He told psychiatrist Dr Anneka John-Kamen he had gone there after hearing West End Girls by the Pet Shop Boys on the radio.

He thought the track was giving him instructions – a condition referred to as “delusions of reference”.

He also told Dr John-Kamen he remembered thinking “yes, yes, yes I’m going to hurt someone” – and was anxious because he owed drug money to people who were threatening him.

The defendant also claimed he only meant to scare Mr French, and only intended to push Sir Robert onto the floor.

When asked whether he would have pushed a woman or a child, Crossley told doctors he could never have done that.

Crossley denied two counts of attempted murder, insisting he picked his victims at random and did not mean to kill them.

But jurors found him guilty of two charges of attempted murder at the Old Bailey last October.

Crossley’s sentencing hearing will continue on Thursday with further psychiatric evidence, and is due to conclude next Monday.

He is being held at a psychiatric facility in east London.

(c) Sky News 2019: Man who pushed a 91-year-old onto Tube track ‘took £600 of drugs’