Niamh Shackleton
Audio of a 999 phone call was released by Welsh police after a man was convicted of murdering his best friend.
On Christmas Eve 2023, Dylan Thomas stabbed his best friend and housemate William Bush 37 times.
Thomas has stayed with his grandmother the night before the ordeal, and was driven home by her on the day in question.
He'd told her he simply needed to check on his dog, but proceeded to murder Bush instead.
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Thomas, who is the grandson to multimillionaire pie company tycoon Sir Stanley Thomas, went on to deny that he murdered Bush, 23, but pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
The young man was tried in November 2024, and a jury took just three hours to reach their verdict.
They found Thomas guilty of murder, and he was sentenced to a minimum term of 19 years behind bars on Friday (January 24).
During his trial last year, 999 audio from a call made by Thomas was played to the court.
Warning: distressing content
"I need an ambulance to my house," he told the operator on the other end of the phone.
Meanwhile, a woman in distress was heard shouting 'quickly, quickly' in the background.
After sharing his address, the call handler asked if Bush was awake.
"No, no, he's my friend," replied Thomas.
He was then asked if Bush was breathing, to which he said: "No he's not, he's dead."
In another audio clip that was played to the court, Thomas was heard telling the operator that his friend had 'gone mental' and he grabbed a knife because he was 'scared for [his] life'.
"He’s gone mental, I stabbed him. I took the knife off him and it just happened really," Thomas said.
He went on to be asked by the operator where on Bush's body he was injured, Wales Online reported.
"Everywhere on him, I kept going and stabbed him," Thomas said. "I didn’t stop… He stabbed me on my hands, my hands to get the knife."
Thomas later went on to claim he was suffering from an 'abnormality of mind' when he carried out the attack due to psychosis and schizophrenia.
But experts found that Thomas' schizophrenia was unlikely to have prevented him from exercising self-control, which didn't support the 24-year-old's defense of diminished responsibility.
"I am satisfied that as a result of your schizophrenia, your ability to form a rational judgment was impaired, albeit not the substantial level required to establish the defence of diminished responsibility," the judge said.
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