PARENTS DEMAND JUSTICE FOR STABBED JUSTIN

As Justin's killer, Nicholas Mason, was being driven to Broadmoor Mental Hospital, the victim's father, Ramzy El Korashy, said: "Murders are happening throughout the country on a daily basis, yet nothing is being done about it."

He blamed "liberals and human rights campaigners" for the current "soft" approach to killers, adding: "Where were Justin's human rights?"

He said: "A caring and kind young man lost his life after being attacked in his office by a total stranger.

"Society must gather together and give all victims of violent crime a voice."

The 60-year-old design engineer, of Saltdean Drive, Saltdean, urged people to lobby their MPs for harsher penalties for those who carry knives and for killers to serve life, not just nine or ten years.

Mason, a 25-year-old printer, of no fixed address, killed Justin and wounded two other men in a random stabbing spree in Brighton in November, 1997.

ALewes Crown Court jury yesterday found Mason not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. Mason also admitted two woundings and escaping from custody. He will be sentenced on June 1.

Justin's mother, Carole, a 53-year-old teacher, disagreed with the jury's verdict saying Mason took drink or drugs on the night, knowing they would make him violent. She said: "We all have to take responsibility for our actions."

She added: "We struggled through the trial to find some explanation for Justin's death, to help us come to terms with it, but unfortunately we have not found a reason.

"Justin was a popular, friendly boy who was just starting out in life and never did harm to anyone, and did not deserve to die like that."

Mr El Korashy wants changes in the way psychological disorders are presented to the courts.

And he is calling for the Mental Health Act to be amended so those with a potential for violence are picked up early and detained.

He argued that Mason was in full control of his faculties as he was capable of escaping to Amsterdam and demonstrated "very calculating behaviour".

He said: "My son was brutally killed and he has now joined the thousands of victims in this country.

"Some of those given life by the courts have served just nine years."

He wants Parliament to introduce life sentences that mean life, and appealed to all like-minded people: "Act now before it is too late for you to protect your family."

Mr El Korashy firmly believes that "whole life" sentences and the death penalty would act as deterrents, and believes his son would be alive today had they been on the statute books.

BACKGROUND TO A BRUTAL KILLING

NICHOLAS Mason is today behind bars in Broadmoor, one of Britain's highest secure psychiatric hospitals. Yesterday, a jury cleared him of murder but he was convicted of manslaughter over the death of 19-year-old Justin El Korashy, and the wounding of two others. Judge Richard Brown described Mason as potentially a great danger to the public. PHIL MILLS looks at the background to the "psychological timebomb" that exploded on a wet evening in Brighton.

CRAZED killer Nicholas Mason was a psychopath knifeman who went on a random stabbing spree in Brighton killing one and wounding two others.

The deadly blows he made with a combat knife were upward thrusts, designed to penetrate under the rib cage and cause maximum injury.

They were the acts of a cold-blooded killer, according to police, but to the jury, they were the climax to a life of mental trauma.

The prosecution insisted Mason was not mad but bad, and pressed for a murder conviction, but defence barrister Peter Rook successfully argued that Mason suffered from diminished responsibility.

Mason, he said, was a tormented man with a severe personality disorder who constantly feared for his safety when on the streets.

He said Mason "was an unpredictable timebomb".

The timebomb's clock started ticking from an early age.

Born in 1973, Nicholas Stuart Mason first lived with his two sisters and mother in Alfriston Close, on Brighton's Whitehawk estate.

He wasn't to meet his father for 21 years.

Mason spent his formative years in Islington, London, until the family returned to Brighton 13 years ago.

He attended local schools and was twice referred to psychiatrists who diagnosed Mason as suffering from mild dyslexia.

He liked fishing and boxing, but was hopeless at academic work, leaving secondary school as soon as possible at 15 with no qualifications.

His first jobs were making signs and then selling jewellery, but by then he was heavily dependent on drink.

He moved back briefly to London, staying with his maternal grandmother, and on his 21st birthday met his father for the first time - an encounter that left him feeling rejected and unloved.

He tried to commit suicide afterwards, overdosing on pills and drink.

Drink and illicit drugs were the triggers that unleashed a vicious streak in his nature, and, according to the prosecution, exposed a callous lack of feeling for others.

Mason's violent outbursts grew worse. He attacked his mother outside a pub after he had been drinking and on another occasion smashed a glass in the face of his sister's boyfriend. Mason had given the boyfriend cash to buy cocaine but the money was spent by mistake on drink.

Mason was convicted of theft in 1992 and of violence the following year, but it was in 1996 that he was accused of the ultimate act of brutality.

He was arrested for murder after a gang fight during the Finsbury Frolics fair in London.

The charge was later reduced to manslaughter and a jury found him not guilty. It was just a year later that he committed the Brighton stabbings.

Mason bought the knife in Portslade soon after his manslaughter acquittal, telling friends he feared that family and friends of the dead man were after him.

But there was never any mention of this as a motive or excuse for the Brighton stabbings.

Mason said few words throughout the nine-day trial at Lewes Crown Court. There was nothing from him for the jury to draw from but, like everyone else in court, they could not have failed to have noticed his chilling, black staring eyes.

This social misfit, with a history of psychotic behaviour and attacks, nodded to his mother as he was sent down, the family bond apparently still in tact. Yet he must have known it was she who had turned him in.

It was his 44-year-old mother, who lives and works in Newhaven, who contacted Brighton police.

Until then, detectives had no clues. The case at the start on that cold wet night in November 1997 was every police officer's nightmare.

Three stabbings, all random and unconnected, and motiveless. Police had no idea where to start. The attacker was on the run, leaving behind him one man fatally wounded and two others seriously injured.

Investigating officers admit they were terrified he would strike again.

Police cordoned off a huge area of Brighton. Teams searched the streets while the force helicopter flew numerous sorties in the hope of spotting someone running or trying to hide.

It was all to no avail. Mason dashed back to his place of work in New England Street, dried blood caked on his hands.

Then he persuaded a frightened workmate to drive him to Brighton station.

Mason threw his murderous combat knife out of the train window before reaching Gatwick, where he caught a plane to Amsterdam.

He was there while victim Justin El Korashy fought for his life. The 19-year-old, of Saltdean Drive, Saltdean, died in hospital five days later.

Justin was one of two victims, doing paperwork and winding down at the end of the day at Farside advertising agency in Providence Place.

Mason had already stabbed caterer Ruan Ali Malkovich, 35, outside his flat in Ditchling Road, just minutes earlier.

Mason called there asking for "Susie" but Mr Malkovich told him he lived there alone. Mason responded with violence, stabbing the victim in the stomach and an eye.

Mason fled across the nearby London Road and into Providence Place. There was no apparent reason why he should call in at Farside, except he could hear music playing. Mason asked workers: "Is there a party going on? Why wasn't I invited?"

In a violent rage he stabbed Jason in the heart and Jason's workmate Thomas Meakin, 20, from Hove, in the back.

Det Insp Malcolm Bacon, of Brighton CID, admitted it was "chaos" in the early stages of the investigation.

Descriptions of the knifeman were circulated but there were still no clues to the killer's identity until Mason's mother telephoned.

Press reports, Mason's history of violence, and his sudden disappearance made her come forward and she provided police with a photograph.

Mason's details were circulated throughout the country and abroad through Interpol. Police were waiting when he returned to Britain by ferry at Harwich.

Mr Bacon praised Mason's mother: "She may well have saved other lives."

After interviewing and reading psychiatric reports on Mason, Mr Bacon was convinced: "There is no doubt this man could kill again.

"Mason to me is a cold-blooded psychopath, self centred, and with no care or regard for anyone else.

"He is one of the most frightening men I have ever investigated."

JUSTIN HURT NO ONE, BUT HE WAS STABBED IN THE HEART

JUSTIN El Korashy was a popular, life-loving young man with a bright future who died doing what he was best known for - helping others.

The 19-year-old suffered a fatal knife wound in the heart as he went to the aid of his colleague Thomas Meakin, stabbed in the back by Nicholas Mason.

Justin, described by his grieving parents as a boy who never did harm to anyone, just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The first of three sons, Justin was born in Cambridgeshire and the family moved to Saltdean in 1983. He attended Saltdean Junior School and Longhill School where he gained eight GCSEs.

He later took an advanced GNVQ at Brighton and Hove Sixth Form College and an A-level in business and accountancy at Brighton College of Technology.

His certificate arrived at the family home just days after he died.

Amassive 250 people attended a memorial servicefor Justin at St Nicholas Church, Saltdean, close to his home in Saltdean Drive, a month after his death.

Justin liked music and playing football and had a wide circle of friends. He had started work at Farside Trading, a door-to-door canvassing agency, just two weeks before the stabbing.

His grandmother, Joan Huxley, said: "It was the first job he had since leaving school and he was so enthusiastic about it."

Justin's father, a 60-year-old design engineer from Egypt, and his mother Carole, a 53-year-old teacher, have two others sons, Marcus, 18, and Oliver, 16.

Carole has shed tears every day for the past 16 months since her son died.

She said: "Life has been terrible. We have tried to carry on as normally as possible, for the sake of our other two sons, but when I am on my own I can't help but think of him. I have cried every day."

Carole and Ramzy were in court throughout the trial.

Carole, who works part-time at Saltdean County Primary School, said: "Justin was a very determined young man and he would have wanted us to see this through, to see that justice is done."

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