Jury clears mild-mannered ‘nice guy’ Andrew John Whitefield of murdering knife-wielding attacker Maciej Novak

Published: 21st April, 2011
by DAVID ST GEORGE

A DRAINAGE works expert charged with a knife murder has walked free after an Old Bailey jury decided he had been fighting for his own life.

Andrew John Whitefield, 53, said he was attacked by a stranger he had met at a flat in Chalk Farm, where he had gone for a social drink on Halloween last year.

His assailant leapt at him with a knife in a darkened bedroom, the court heard, leaving him in fear he was about to be killed.

The struggle led to the death of newly-married Maciej Novak, known as “Magic”.

Mr Whitefield, known as “Woody”, was described as a mild-mannered “nice guy” without a violent side. A jury of six men and six women cleared him of murder and manslaughter on Tuesday.

The court was told Mr Whitefield left the scene of the attack in Forge Place as doctors opened Mr Novak’s chest and tried in vain to save his life. 

The 25-year-old died from two stab wounds, bleeding to death internally. 

Mr Whitefield, of Horsell Road, Highbury, said he left without realising what had happened. He had been in custody awaiting his trial since his arrest in October last year.

Defence witnesses, including well-known Kentish Town school governor, community activist and charity fundraiser Peter Palmer, gave evidence on his behalf. They described Mr Whitefield, a single man, as an easy-going “nice guy” who would walk away from trouble.

His defence QC, Tim Moloney, told the jury: “For him your decision is the most important he’ll ever have to face in his life. He had no intention of stabbing the victim. 

“He does not have to prove anything and does not know whether he stabbed him or not.”

Mr Moloney said that Mr Novak, a manual worker from Kensal Green, was a jealous, drunken troublemaker wracked by insecurity who regularly hit the bottle by downing vodka.

Mr Novak suffered wounds to the heart and lungs, one of which was 10 centimetres deep.

It was claimed in court he was “very jealous and possessive” and jumped to the wrong conclusion that the defendant was making sexual suggestions to his wife, Jackie.

Mr Novak had been arrested on many occasions for drunken assaults on police, arson, criminal damage and attacking his wife because she put tomato sauce on his supper.

Mr Whitefield rejected prosecution claims that, after being beaten up by the victim, he wanted revenge and armed himself.

“I don’t carry a knife,” he told the court. He said that Mr Novak battered him and got him in a headlock, threatening to kill him. “I was very frightened. I did not know if he had been stabbed or not when I left. There was no blood,” he said.