TOM RAWSTORNE: Why a criminology scholar who stabbed two random ladies 30 instances as a result of he wished to star in his personal homicide thriller was so hopeless

Arriving late for the lecture, the young man took his seat at the back of the hall, not even bothering to remove the pair of large red headphones he was wearing.

But as soon as the talk finished and the class of criminology students were asked if they had any questions, 20-year-old Nasen Saadi was the first to put up his hand.

‘Can you go back to the point where you spoke about murder and self-defence?’ he said.

Further queries followed. What DNA is left behind at a crime scene? How long does it remain? How do police trace it?

The bemused university lecturer, who had actually been telling her class about the structure of the House of Commons, interrupted, asking: ‘You’re not planning a murder are you?’

Saadi replied he was carrying out research for an article. But the truth was very different.

And in the months that followed, the university student would fine-tune his plan to kill – purchasing knives, studying other murders and searching online for a suitable location.

In May he put that plan into action, travelling from his south London home to Bournemouth where he brutally butchered two women enjoying a late-night campfire on the beach.

Amie Gray, who was married to partner Sian, was stabbed ten times, dying where she fell from a blow to the heart. 

Her friend, Leanne Miles, would miraculously survive, despite suffering 20 wounds. Saadi, meanwhile, made good his escape. 

Or so he thought. Because, despite all his preparations, within days police had identified him on CCTV.

Even then, he still believed he could get away with the crime. By successfully disposing of the knife and the clothing he had worn at the time of the stabbing there was no DNA linking him to the killing.

Saadi also refused to help police access his phone, cockily boasting that he had set a code that no one could crack while taunting them about their failure to find the murder weapon. 

And, while admitting being in Bournemouth, he claimed he could not remember his movements on the day of the attack, suggesting that he may have had a blackout.

Although he did not give evidence, his defence was simple enough – the online searches were research for his studies and it was all just a case of mistaken identity. ‘That’s not me,’ Saadi told police when confronted with CCTV footage of a hooded figure leaving the crime scene.

Despite those denials, a jury at Winchester Crown Court yesterday took just five-and-a-half hours to find him guilty of murder and attempted murder.

But, while now facing life behind bars, what motivated the attack remains unclear. One element appears to be a belief that he could outwit the police – and star in a ‘true-crime’ story of his own design. 

As for his choice of victims – two women chosen at random – it can be revealed that, while studying at Greenwich University, Saadi regularly shocked other students with outspoken comments about women being inferior to men.

It can also be revealed that while held on remand at Belmarsh Prison in south-east London he had asked a female prison officer how much press coverage the stabbing had got – before masturbating in his cell.

Details of the incident, which the prosecution argued showed his murderous spree was motivated by a desire for excitement and fame, were not put to the jury.

They were also not told how, just three months before the murder, Saadi had been reported to the Metropolitan Police for stalking.

The circumstances of that incident and what action – if any – they took are unknown.

But when his arrest for murder was made public, his alleged victim complained and the police watchdog ordered Scotland Yard to carry out an investigation, which is ongoing.

Whether it represented a missed opportunity to stop Saadi, who will be sentenced in March, we do not know.

After the verdicts, Benjamin May, senior prosecutor with the Crown Prosecution Service, described the murder as a ‘senseless attack’.

‘Though both victims were chosen at random, Nasen Saadi’s unfathomable desire to carry out a murder was backed up by extensive planning – which included going to great lengths to avoid getting caught,’ he said. ‘Now he has been convicted and faces life behind bars, I hope he will be forgotten.’

Saadi is the eldest of three sons born to Patama Pongsri, who comes from Thailand, and her husband, who was born in Iraq and is a landlord and director of a fruit importation company which his wife runs. It is understood that Saadi and his parents came to the UK from Thailand when he was four, with his two brothers later born in this country.

As part of her work, Ms Pongsri regularly travels to Thailand to source produce, often taking her family with her.

Pictures on social media show them visiting relatives as well as supporting local charities. 

Back in the UK, the family enjoys a comfortable, middle-class life in a £600,000 semi-detached property on a quiet semi-rural road on the outskirts of Purley, south London. Neighbours were shocked by Saadi’s arrest.

‘As far as anyone could tell, they were a perfectly normal family,’ one told the Mail. ‘We would exchange Christmas cards and gifts, biscuits and chocolates. 

‘When my daughter had some health difficulties the mother was an absolute rock. They are a really good family and as neighbours have always been there for me.’

Saadi attended the ‘outstanding’ Riddlesdown Collegiate, a large, mixed secondary school. 

A keen sportsman, he enjoyed football and running, taking part in athletics meets and weekly 5km ‘parkruns’. 

But he was not academic, telling police after his arrest that he was ‘dumb’ and had not done well in his exams. It was suggested in court that he was on the ‘autistic spectrum’.

Having finished school in 2022, Saadi got a place to study physical education at the University of Greenwich before transferring to a criminology and criminal psychology degree.

Turn the clock back almost exactly a year and Saadi’s mother was wishing her ‘gorgeous son’ a happy 20th birthday on Facebook. ‘I hope your dreams will come true and you will succeed in life,’ she wrote.

In January this year he moved out of the family home and into a flat nearby, where his paternal aunt and grandfather lived.

He told police that he and his parents ‘don’t really talk much’ and that he left because it was too noisy to study at home but he could not afford a place of his own.

It was while at university that lecturer Lisa-Maria Reiss noticed Saadi’s unusual, off-topic questions. 

These were directed not just at her but also at a police officer who came to speak to the students. ‘He [Saadi] asked if different police departments and areas communicate and share evidence,’ she recalled. 

‘He asked how far away someone would have to travel to get away with certain offences.’

In his defence, it would be claimed that these questions were par for the course for a criminology student with an interest in ‘true crime’. 

But analysis of Saadi’s laptop after the murder suggests his interests went well beyond the purely academic.

He researched murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler and her killer Levi Bellfield, as well as 16-year-old Brianna Ghey, who was brutally stabbed to death last year.

He also asked ‘Why do criminals get away with crimes in rural areas?’ and ‘Why is it harder for a criminal to get caught if he does it in another town?’.

And the court heard he sought details of Brighton and Bournemouth beaches, searching: ‘Are pebble beaches easier to run on compared with sand beaches?’ He also queried which was busier at night.

Saadi was also fascinated by knives, looking up terms such as ‘stabbing’, ‘sharpest knives’ and ‘what supermarkets UK can you buy kitchen knives?’.

But he didn’t just look. After his arrest, Saadi’s father handed police two knives and an axe that he had previously confiscated from his son.

His grandfather also informed officers of a knife hidden in a cavity between the wardrobe and wall in his bedroom. 

Five further knives were retrieved from his aunt’s flat, including a serrated knife in a sheath and a black machete. 

The Mail can reveal that a number of the knives purchased by Saadi, who used the name Ninja Killer on the messaging app Snapchat, came from a company called DNA Leisure.

The online retailer has attracted fierce criticism after knives sold by the firm have been linked to a string of murders carried out across Britain in recent years.

And so we come to Saadi’s fateful trip to Bournemouth on May 21, ahead of which his aunt texted him to enjoy his first trip away alone: ‘Have a lovely first independent travel, enjoy.’

Arriving by train, he initially stayed at a Travelodge before switching to a guest house on the 23rd, the day before the murder.

That evening he went see the movie The Strangers: Chapter 1. The film was described in court as a ‘slasher home invasion movie’, in which the male and female leads are both stabbed.

Over successive nights in Bournemouth Saadi was caught on CCTV walking along the promenade to Durley Chine beach, carrying out a ‘recce’ of the area. At 11pm on May 24 he set out again.

Among the handful of people still on the beach were 34-year-old Amie Gray, a postal worker and ladies’ football coach from Poole, and her friend Leanne Miles, 38, a beauty salon owner and mother of three. 

The pair had arranged to meet and have a picnic and take in the view of a moonlit sea next to a campfire.

Prosecutor Sarah Jones KC told Winchester Crown Court what happened next.

‘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,’ she said.

‘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.’

She went on: ‘With purpose, slowly, stealthily and quietly, when he thought no one would observe him, he hovered at the edges of the promenade, then stepped on to the sand, and walked directly towards the two women with a knife in his hand.

‘In an act horrifying in its savagery and in its randomness, he stabbed them both multiple times, chasing after them as they tried to escape or divert him from the other and he continued his attack.’

Ms Miles later told police: ‘I ran to the top of the promenade, and I could hear Amie saying “Get off me”. And he came back on to me, and he was continuously stabbing me, and I told him to stop. I kept turning my back to him, so all my injuries are on one side of my back. I didn’t want to look at him. I couldn’t look at him. I said, “Please stop, I’ve got children.” And then I think that’s when he started to go, he walked away.’

A recording of a 999 call made by Ms Miles was played to the jury during which she was heard crying in pain. She told the operator: ‘I have been stabbed loads of times. Oh my God I am getting dizzy, please hurry up, please hurry up.’

Analysis of CCTV footage, which had captured the attack, led to the identification of Saadi who was also subsequently picked out of a line-up of photos by a man who had seen him hurrying away on the night of the murder.

He was arrested at his home on May 28. The knife used in the attack has never been found.

A rucksack containing white latex gloves, two of which were turned inside out, a black balaclava, torc, and used wet wipes was also found.

Interviewed by police, Saadi initially declined to answer questions before saying he would not kill someone ‘for no reason’.

But he then went on to say that he had an interest in true crime and enjoyed horror movies like the one he had seen in Bournemouth. Asked why he liked the film, he replied that it was because the killer ‘did not have a motive’.

At one point he told detectives: ‘I feel like you’ve got very weak evidence and I can’t believe I’m being wrongly accused of a serious offence I’ve got nothing to do with . . . I think your evidence is circumstantial.’

His barrister went further still, telling the jury: ‘Like so many murder movies, on the big or small screen, the obvious candidate turns out to be an innocent stooge.’

But this was real life, not fiction. And the ‘obvious candidate’ a young man called Nasen Saadi who killed for kicks and was caught.