Axeman Taras Voinovich has been jailed for life for a brutal attack on Oxford solicitor Philip Turpin.

This is everything the judge, Recorder John Hardy KC, said to the Ukrainian national as he sent him down on Monday afternoon.

Grievance

“On the morning of July 28 of last year, spurred by a sense of grievance which was burning inside you, you carried out an attack.

[He is interrupted by a shout of ‘this is not true’ from the dock]

The judge carried on where he left off: “[An attack] on Mr Philip Turpin, which was an attack of the utmost severity and ferocity.”

[Again, he is interrupted from the dock. The only words in English that are audible are ‘not true’]

Recorder Hardy asked the interpreter: “Could you explain to Mr Voinovich that I am not listening to him but that if he continues to interrupt I shall pass sentence upon him in his absence?”

He continued: “You had no reason of knowing Mr Turpin, other than that he was the principal of a firm of solicitors specialising in immigration work whom you had engaged to clarify your immigration status within the UK.

“For no sensible reason so far as the court can discern, you took exception to the quality of service provided.

“As it was, although you did not know it, Mr Turpin, whilst quite rightly not accepting that his firm had done anything wrong, had nevertheless decided to refund you the fee that you had paid.

“But such was your sense of grievance – in my judgment a wholly irrational sense of grievance – that you armed yourself with an axe, a truly lethal weapon, but that axe in your rucksack and hunted down Mr Turpin who at that stage of the morning enjoying breakfast at his house.

"You lured him out by throwing a brick through his front window.

“Such was the noise, Mr Turpin originally thought that there had been a road accident outside his house. But as he went out through the front door, he saw the damage to his front window.

“You have repeatedly insisted that you had no intention of doing anything which you did later on shortly after Mr Turpin had emerged from his house.

“But in my judgment, motivated by irrational grievance you planned this attack, you targeted Mr Turpin deliberately and whilst he had a brief conversation with you, not knowing who you are or were because he was not the solicitor who dealt with your case, you, waiting till his back was turned, set about him by striking him to the back of the head, sending him staggering down the road, stumbling and falling to the ground.

“That wasn’t enough for you."

READ MORE: Life for East Oxford axeman who attacked lawyer

'Vulnerable'

“With Mr Turpin vulnerable, unarmed and unable to defend himself, you carried on with your truly murderous assault and I have not the slightest doubt that were it not for the heroic conduct of his wife and his neighbour you would have killed him.

“You have complained - and it is something of a theme for you, Mr Voinovich - about the representation you received in the trial proceedings that followed."

'Sadistic thrill'

“Having attended on the first day, and effectively forced despite the overwhelming nature of the evidence against you, Mr Turpin and [his wife] to relive that episode, forcing them to see the CCTV footage for the first time to, in particular in [Mrs Turpin’s] case, her evident distress.

"Having derived whatever gratuitous sadistic thrill you obtained from doing that, you then refused to attend court for the remainder of the proceedings, leaving [defence counsel] Mr Barrett to do his best on your behalf.

“I am not punishing you for not attending court.

“But in my judgment your lack of cooperation, your refusal to allow the court to consider a psychiatric assessment, which had been commissioned about you but not at public expense, these are factors which both individually and collectively cause me to form the view that I have about how dangerous you are to the public.

“Of course, the principal component of the assessment of dangerousness consists of the offences themselves.

“But I also very well remember the mobile phone footage of you as you left the scene of your terrible crimes, with your eyes appearing glazed and fixed ahead of you.

“You left not in a panic, nor a hurry, but with an air of eerie and chilling calm.

“Dr Bennett has produced a psychiatric report about you.

"She diagnoses you as suffering from a depressive disorder and in a very carefully constructed opinion she says that this depressive disorder may, I stress the word may, have contributed to some extent to your behaviour on the morning in question.

“That is as far as she can go."

Dangerous

“The author of the pre-sentence report, with whose opinions I wholly agree, describes the attacks you carried out as considered targeted and retributive.

“I have to consider section 285 of the Sentencing Act 2020. I am fully satisfied that the requisite conditions are made out in your case and that you pose a significant risk of serious harm to the public and will continue to pose a significant risk of serious harm to the public for a number of years, which cannot be measured on a determinate scale.

“Accordingly, I shall pass a sentence upon you of life imprisonment.”

Learning he had been given a life sentence, Voinovich’s Adam’s apple could be seen dropping as he gulped.

“Had I imposed a determinate sentence, for the reasons which have been so carefully set out by Mr Stone for the prosecution,- in the reports by their respective authors, and most of all because I saw on the crystal clear CCTV footage what you did and how you behaved that morning, I would have imposed a determinate sentence over and above the range set out in the Sentencing Council guideline.

"It would have been one of 18 years imprisonment.”

He explained he would impose a life sentence and fix the ‘tariff’ – the term that Voinovich will spend behind bars before being eligible for parole – at 12 years.

The sentence was imposed on both counts of wounding with intent that the jury had convicted Voinovich of.

“That you will be eligible to apply for parole does not automatically mean that you will obtain parole.

“Indeed, the Parole Board may take the view, the view that I at present take of you, that you are so dangerous you may never be released.”

Oxford Mail: Click here to sign up to the Crime and Court newsletter Click here to sign up to the Crime and Court newsletter (Image: Newsquest)

For causing actual bodily harm to the neighbour, the judge imposed a three year jail sentence. It will be served alongside the life sentence.

He received no separate penalty for damaging the window.

“That is the sentence of this court,” the judge said. He added, to the custody officer: “Would you take him down, please?”

Before he left the dock, Voinovich made a series of unpleasant remarks aimed at his victim and the judge.