London - A man knocked down and killed his stepfather in a hit-and-run attack as revenge for being sexually abused as a child, a court heard.
Nathan Kenny, 33, was terrified of Michael Fennah, 52, who molested him when he was 13.
He snapped after seeing his stepfather in the street and deliberately drove into him.
Witnesses told police Kenny reversed back and forth four or five times, before leaving Fennah for dead.
Officers later found a handwritten note from Kenny, which said: “Sorry, I’m not evil, he was a bad man.”
Kenny was due to stand trial for Fennah’s murder but prosecutors accepted his guilty plea to unlawful killing through a loss of control, after hearing that he had suffered ‘extreme pain and humiliation’ at his stepfather’s hands.
On Friday, he was jailed for three years. But with time spent on remand, he is likely to be free in just 12 months.
Judge David Aubrey QC, sitting at Liverpool Crown Court, told Kenny: “The trigger and background of this case was as a result of things said and done to you which were of an extremely grave character and which caused you to have a justified sense of being seriously wronged.
“The court is satisfied you have suffered great torment.”
Kenny’s mother was married to Fennah for a matter of months in 1991, the court heard. But the relationship was abusive from the start.
Kenny witnessed his mother being abused and suffered sexual abuse himself.
Even when the relationship ended, Kenny claimed Fennah continued to mock and taunt him for years, causing him to be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. He told psychiatrists: “It is like I am back there. I see his face, the beatings, it is just fear.”
Gordon Cole QC, prosecuting, said the “trigger” for the killing came on December 16 last year when Kenny’s five-year-old niece received a Christmas card from Fennah’s young son. Kenny believed this came from his stepfather.
The following morning, he spotted Fennah walking home from his local shop in Whiston, Merseyside.
In a fit of anger, he drove his Renault Megane on to the pavement and slammed into is stepfather from behind.
“The movement of the car threw Michael Fennah on to the bonnet then the windscreen of the car and then he landed on the floor,” Cole said. “The defendant then drove his car over the body of Michael Fennah.”
Witnesses told police Kenny reversed and ran over his stepfather at least four or five times. But two pathologists who examined the body found no evidence to support this.
Kenny drove off and confessed to his sister: “I’ve done it, I’ve killed Mick, I’ve run him over.”
Nick Johnson QC, defending, said Kenny had “little recollection” of the killing and the abuse he had suffered was “truly dreadful”.
Daily Mail