Life for killing Jongeurs man Jody

The two thugs who murdered Jongleurs bar manager Jody Dobrowski just for being gay have both been jailed for life.

At the Old Bailey yesterday, judge Brian Barker, said that both unemployed Thomas Pickford, 25, and decorator Scott Walker, 33, would each serve at least 28 years before being considered for parole.

They went to a well-known gay pick-up spot on Clapham Common, South London, on October 14 with the sole intent of ‘homophobic thuggery’, the judge said.

Mr Dobrowski, who was bar manager of the Camden branch of the comedy club chain, suffered 33 injuries from punches and kicks. Police said his face was ‘a swollen and bloody pulp’. He was so badly injured that a pathologist was unable to say how many times he had been hit.

A witness had told how he saw Pickford and Walker ‘kicking and jumping [on Mr Dobrowski] as if trying to kill an animal’.

In a statement outside court, his family said: ‘Jody's murder was an outrage. It was a political act. It was an act of terrorism. Jody was not the first man to be killed, or terrorised, or beaten or humiliated for being homosexual - or for being perceived to be homosexual.

‘Tragically, he will not be the last man to suffer the consequences of homophobia, which is endemic in this society. This is unacceptable. We cannot accept this. No intelligent, healthy or reasonable society could.’

Both men had been involved in an assault on another homosexual in the area two weeks earlier. At that time, Walker had been out of prison on licence for assaulting and threatening to kill his own mother.

Published: 17 Jun 2006