Men found guilty of student murders
A dangerous knife thug freed from jail by mistake and a drug addict have been convicted of murdering two French students in an attack of "unmitigated evil".
Dano Sonnex and Nigel Farmer stabbed brilliant postgraduates Laurent Bonomo and Gabriel Ferez a total of 244 times during a three-hour torture ordeal.
Mr Bonomo's mother Lydie said her son would still be alive if it were not for the errors at every level of the justice system that let Sonnex go.
Sonnex, 23, of Peckham, and Farmer, a 34-year-old decorator and drug addict of no fixed address, were each found guilty of both murders and face two life sentences.
The Old Bailey heard Sonnex had been jailed for a previous knife attack but was allowed out on licence and went straight back to his life of crime. Yet instead of being recalled to prison he was left free to kill after what was described as a "complete breakdown in communication".
Even when the error was spotted it was 16 days before police came round to take Sonnex into custody on June 29 last year - but they were too late.
Unknown to officers, the French students already lay dead at Mr Bonomo's bedsit in New Cross, south London in a scene of "almost unimaginable horror".
Justice Secretary Jack Straw has apologised to the victims' families for the blunders while David Scott, head of the London probation service, has resigned following a review of the case. A police sergeant has been disciplined after an independent investigation. The French government has been receiving regular updates about the trial.
The two students, dressed only in their underpants, had been woken in the night and tied up after Sonnex and Farmer climbed through an open window. They stole games consoles, mobile phones and bank cards, which they used to withdraw £360.
Fuelled by drink and drugs, the robbers egged each other on to an "inhuman" attack of "brutal and sustained ferocity", the Old Bailey heard. It was described by prosecutors as an "orgy of bloodletting".
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