Teenager gets 18 years for murdering pensioner

Imran Douglas, sentenced for murder of pensioner. Pic: Met Police

Imran Douglas, sentenced for murder of pensioner. Pic: Met Police

An 18-year-old has been sentenced to 18 years in prison for the murder of an 88-year-old woman in her Shadwell care home.

Imran Douglas, 18, from Norman Close in Romford, pleaded guilty to murdering Margery Gilby and was sentenced at the Old Bailey on Friday.

Douglas was 17 when he broke into the care home accommodation, where he stabbed and then strangled Gilby to death in her own bed on May 24.

He was arrested that evening at an East London address, after images of Douglas escaping from Gilby’s bedroom window were taken from the care home’s CCTV footage.

Gilby’s son Alan, 55, from Bethnal Green, was the first to his mother’s body. He later described the former café chef as “the kindest most gentle person” with “old-fashioned East End values.”

The son did not attend the court sentencing, stating: “If I were to see Imran Douglas in person, it would make him real to me. He would haunt me and I know those momentary flashes would be unbearable.”

Friday’s court heard that social services had failed to react to warnings from Douglas’ own father that the teenager was a danger to society.

As Douglas was sentenced, Judge John Bevan QC told him: “Clearly you have significant problems controlling your anger and it is a tragedy that social services failed to have regard to the reality of the extreme danger you posed…It is in my judgement, and sadly, a crime at the top end of the scale of gravity.”

It is thought that Douglas had an accomplice, who drove the pair away from the scene of the crime, but he refused to give a name.

One Response

  1. Pat McCann November 14, 2013

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