Nasen Saadi planned beach murder to ‘know how it felt to make women afraid’

Nasen Saadi extensively planned the killing of Amie Gray and the attempted murder of Leanne Miles because he “wanted to know what it would be like to make women feel afraid”, his trial heard.

The 21-year-old criminology student had quizzed his lecturers on how to get away with murder and researched the best location to carry out his attacks right down to the detail of whether it is easier to run away on a sand or pebble beach.

He had a fascination for knives – he collected several at his home, including hiding one in the wall cavity of his bedroom – and was obsessed with horror movies.

He even watched the films in class at the University of Greenwich on his laptop.

His trial at Winchester Crown Court heard that Saadi would wear his headphones during lectures before asking the teacher questions about how to get away with murder and how to use self-defence as an excuse for crimes – topics that had not been covered in the lesson.

Lecturer Dr Lisa-Maria Reiss told the court that she found his questions so unusual that she asked him: “You are not planning a murder, are you?”

The court heard that Saadi described women as “weaker” than men, and Pavandeep Singh Aneja, a special police officer who came into the class for a question-and-answer session, said Saadi had asked: “What are your thoughts of females as police officers?”

He said this “was a pretty strange question”.

The Metropolitan Police had also received an allegation of stalking made against Saadi three months before the killing.

Saadi also touched himself sexually in front of a female prison officer while in his prison cell ahead of the trial when he asked her how much publicity the case was getting.

Sarah Jones KC, prosecuting, had argued in court that the jury should hear this account as it provided a possible motive for the attacks, but the judge ruled that it was prejudicial so could not be used as evidence.

However, Ms Jones told the jury she believed Saadi was motivated to attack Ms Gray and Ms Miles to find out what murder felt like and in order to make women afraid.

She said: “This defendant seems to have wanted to know what it would be like to take life.

“Perhaps he wanted to know what it would be like to make women feel afraid. Perhaps he thought it would make him feel powerful, make him interesting to others.

“Perhaps he just couldn’t bear to see people engaged in a happy normal social interaction and he decided to lash out, to hurt, to butcher.”

In remarks prepared for the sentencing hearing, Ms Jones said the murder was “premeditated” with the defendant’s misogyny as a possible motive.

She added that there was “clear evidence” of Saadi’s “difficulties with women and misogyny”.

Charles Sherrard KC, defending, told the hearing that Saadi was a “social misfit” who had acted with the ambition to achieve “infamy”.

He said: “He is a social misfit, someone who had hardly any friends at school, never had a girlfriend and seemed to be somebody who was avoided rather than somebody’s mate.

“The fact of that was to provide him with significantly low esteem and general sense of inadequacy.”

He said Saadi compensated by “obsessing” over horror films and was fascinated by the mind of a psychopath and had a “growing sense of rage against society for the rejection”.

Mr Sherrard continued: “Infamy became a valid goal in itself.

“Without using the words of a psychologist, without anything from a thesaurus, what it comes down to, in the words of the defendant, ‘I never got noticed when I did a good thing, people have only noticed when I did a bad thing’, and that’s perhaps the nearest one can get to an explanation.”

Mr Sherrard said Saadi had come from a “loving family” but none of those close to him had noticed the warning signs such as his collection of knives.

He said: “He never went to parties, always felt rejected while all those at home felt all was OK.

“He is a young man who should have been noticed, his difficulties, some of those traits should have been noticed way before, who knows what the narrative would have been thereafter.”

Benjamin May, a senior crown prosecutor with CPS Wessex, said Saadi had taken extensive measures in a bid to avoid getting caught.

He said: “The biggest difficulty was the steps that he had taken to try and ward off forensic countermeasures – things like disposing of the murder weapon, disposing of the clothes, bringing a change of clothes, putting on a disguise as he changed his journey, changing where he was staying.

“There were lots of steps that he had taken in advance of committing this crime to try and prevent the police from apprehending him.

“It was only through the outstanding work by Dorset Police that they were able to build such a complete picture of his movements through the use of the CCTV cameras around and about Dorset, so that they could prove that he was the only person who could have committed this crime.”

Mr May said that because Saadi had not admitted the attacks or given evidence, his motive was not clear.

He explained that Saadi’s internet search history did not reveal membership of any forums but added that he appeared to have an interest in horror movies, even watching them in class while studying for a criminology degree at the University of Greenwich.

He said: “His interests seem to have been geared more towards violent movies. Two days before he committed the crime, he went to watch The Strangers: Chapter 1 at the cinema, and whilst he was in class, he was watching horror movies on a laptop during his criminology degree.

“It seems to me that that was where his focus was, rather than any kind of online community.”

The trial heard that when Saadi was asked by detectives why he liked The Strangers film, he said it was because the killer “did not have a motive”.

Mr May added that it appeared that Saadi had chosen the location of the attacks because it was isolated.

He said: “It’s a place where it’s potentially secluded. There are people out and about, but it’s not a busy location, like, for example, a city centre.

“It’s somewhere where you stand a chance, I suppose, of getting people on their own.”

He added that he hoped that the families of the victims “can get some closure out of this, that they can see that justice was done”.

He said: “The Crown Prosecution Service do take crimes of this nature extremely seriously… we are committed to following up every possible crime of violence against women and girls and bringing the perpetrators to justice.”