Jury fails to reach verdict on second attempted murder charge for refugee who stabbed dog walker to death

The jury in the trial of an Afghan refugee charged with attempting to murder a 14-year-old boy in a knife rampage have failed to reach a verdict.

Uber driver Dawood Safi tried to kill his landlord, Shahzad Farrukh, before stabbing dog walker Wayne Broadhurst, 49, to death in a random attack.

The 28-year-old also inflicted knife wounds on a teenager who was caught up in the violence.

Safi was in the midst of a mental health breakdown when he committed the stabbings in Uxbridge, north west London, on 27 October last year.

He pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Mr Broadhurst just before the trial at Southwark Crown Court was due to begin, and was convicted of attempting to murder Mr Farrukh after admitting actual bodily harm against the teenage boy.

But on Friday, the jury failed to reach a verdict on a more serious charge of attempting to murder the boy, before Mrs Justice Johannah Cutts brought the trial to an end.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decided against a retrial, prosecutor Jonathan Laidlaw KC told the court.

He said: "The defendant has already been convicted on his own plea of manslaughter, convicted by the jury of attempted murder, and he has also pleaded guilty to another assault [on the boy]. We are not going to seek a retrial."

The judge adjourned the case until sentencing on 5 October, with Safi ordered to undergo medical assessments.

She hailed the "intense bravery" of the Rogers family, neighbours who lived near the scene who confronted Safi in a bid to save Mr Broadhurst's life.

Justice Cutts told the court: "The Rogers family could not have been criticised if, when seeing the defendant with a knife intent on hurting others, they had gone into the house and locked the door. They did not."

The court heard Safi was living as a lodger in Mr Farrukh's home and was suffering from delusions and psychosis in the days leading up to the attacks.

He lied about his age, claiming to be 17, when he arrived in the UK on the back of a lorry in 2020 before he was subsequently granted asylum in 2022, the court heard.

Safi told a psychiatrist he witnessed his father being murdered in a land dispute in Afghanistan when he was 10, and Mr Laidlaw said at the time of the stabbings he had suffered a "collapse in his mental health".

Mr Laidlaw added: "The defendant was hearing voices, he'd become consumed by paranoia and delusional beliefs which included that people generally and members of his family in this country were both controlling him and plotting against him."

At around 4.45pm on 27 October, Mr Farrukh entered the kitchen of his home and saw Safi's silhouette through the glass door leading to the annex.

Mr Farrukh opened the door and found himself a few feet from Safi, who was already armed with a large kitchen knife, before launching an attack that spilled onto the street.

Witness Daniella Jarvis told police Safi looked "like he was possessed".

Mr Broadhurst encountered the scene as he came through an alleyway before he was stabbed to death with his dog by his side.

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He was knifed 14 times in the head, neck, chest and back in an attack described by one witness as a "butchering".

The court heard Mr Broadhurst's family wanted Safi to be convicted of murder but prosecutors accepted his guilty plea to the lesser charge of manslaughter after receiving evidence about the state of his mental health.

He will continue to be held at Broadmoor secure hospital until sentencing, where the judge is expected to impose a prison sentence or order that he be held indefinitely in hospital for mental health treatment.

(c) Sky News 2026: Jury fails to reach verdict on second attempted murder charge for refugee who stabbe