Builder caught on CCTV guilty of Hatton Garden murder

John Woodward was struck with a metal pole

A builder has been found guilty of murdering a workmate in an attack that was caught on CCTV.

Albanian national Elton Sefa, 24, struck foreman John Woodward with a 3ft metal pole, the Old Bailey heard.

The 47-year-old's body was found at a jewellery scrap processing service in Hatton Garden, central London.

CCTV recovered by police showed Sefa walking towards Mr Woodward and hitting him with the pole three times as he lay on the ground.

Sefa will be sentenced on 8 July for the killing, which happened in April 2018.

The jury at the Old Bailey was told it might never be clear what caused Sefa to kill Mr Woodward.

However, on the day of the attack Mr Woodward had rung his office manager to say Sefa was annoyed because he claimed to have been underpaid, the court heard.

The body of Mr Woodward was found at a jewellery scrap processing service

Mr Woodward was found by another workmate lying on the fourth-floor balcony where he was killed, with a wound to the back of his head.

A pathologist noted there were also cuts to the front and back of Mr Woodward's neck, which might have been inflicted by the blade of a Stanley knife found close to his body.

After the attack Sefa caught a plane to Amsterdam before travelling to Albania, where he was arrested in February 2019. He was brought back to the UK in January 2020 to face trial.

Sefa had worked with Mr Woodward in a number of different places, prosecutor Danny Robinson QC said.

Although the men usually got on well, colleagues had noticed there was some tension between them on the day before the killing.

Sefa argued diminished responsibility based on his psychiatric state but this defence was rejected by the jury.

'Three traumatic years'

Det Insp James Howarth, who led the investigation said he hoped Mr Woodward's family would "move on from this traumatic episode"

He said: "John was a loving and caring family man and supervisor who was attacked in the cowardly manner by the man who John had overseen for the previous seven months.

"Elton Sefa has refused to say why he attacked John in such a brutal and frenzied way and that has only added to the distress for John's family.

"To John's family, I express my admiration for your patience, fortitude and dignity which you demonstrated over the past three traumatic and very difficult years