An Uber driver who stabbed a dog walker to death in a “frenzy of violence” while experiencing a psychotic episode has been found guilty of trying to murder his landlord as well, because apparently one near-fatal stabbing wasn't enough for his to-do list.

Dawood Safi, 28, killed 49-year-old Wayne Broadhurst in a random knife attack last October, just minutes after attacking his landlord, Shahzad Farrukh, and a 14-year-old boy. Despite being stabbed in the neck, Farrukh and the teenager managed to escape while neighbors in Uxbridge, west London, tried to intervene.

On the first day of the trial at Southwark Crown Court, Safi pleaded guilty to manslaughter of Broadhurst on grounds of diminished responsibility due to his psychotic state. He also admitted grievous bodily harm with intent against Farrukh and actual bodily harm against the boy. On Thursday, the jury found him guilty of attempting to murder Farrukh and is still deliberating on the attempted murder charge related to the teenager.

Safi, an Afghan refugee who arrived in the UK in a lorry in 2020 and was granted asylum in 2022, initially lied about his age and told a psychiatrist he witnessed his father's murder by the Taliban in a land dispute when he was 10. However, prosecutor Jonathan Laidlaw KC told the court that story was “not true,” adding that four mental health experts concluded Safi suffered a “complete mental collapse” at the time of the rampage.

“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,” Laidlaw said.

The prosecution said Safi believed Farrukh might help him due to his role as a Thames Valley police contractor. On the day of the attack, Farrukh entered his kitchen and saw Safi’s silhouette through a glass door. Upon opening it, he found Safi holding a large kitchen knife. “He launched an unannounced attack on Mr Farrukh, who was unarmed and was caught completely unaware,” Laidlaw told the court. As the incident spilled onto the street, Safi encountered Broadhurst walking his dog and stabbed him 14 times in the head, neck, chest, and back - a “frenzied, random and entirely unprovoked attack,” per Laidlaw.

The court heard Broadhurst’s family wanted a murder conviction, but prosecutors accepted Safi’s guilty plea to the lesser charge of manslaughter after evidence about his mental health.