A homeless man who confessed to a murder he committed nearly 40 years ago has been sentenced to life in prison. Anthony Kemp, now 59, killed Christopher Ainscough with a marble ashtray in December 1983 after meeting him on a night out in London.
Kemp walked into Chiswick police station in July 2022 and admitted the killing, telling officers he would rather spend his final years in prison than sleep on the streets. He was sentenced at the Old Bailey to a minimum of 15 and a half years.
The court heard that Mr Ainscough, a 50-year-old head waiter, had invited Kemp back to his home in Kilburn. His body was discovered after he failed to show up for work at a restaurant in the City. The original murder investigation was closed in 1985 but reopened after Kemp's confession.
Kemp initially retracted his confession, blaming an accomplice who had died by suicide in prison. However, DNA evidence from a cigarette butt at the scene linked him to the crime, and he later pleaded guilty. Judge Mark Dennis QC described the killing as a 'wholly unjustified, brutal killing' of a 'harmless, well-respected man'.
