R v Dylan Weatherley

Facts

At around 10.30 pm on 14 October 2022 Mr Koray Alpergin, a well-known broadcaster within the UK Turkish community, was returning home by car with his partner, Ms Dalbudak, when the pair were attacked by a group of males and bundled into a van. They were taken to premises known as the Stadium Lounge off White Hart Lane in Tottenham, where Ms Dalbudak was locked in a lightless lavatory for two days with very little food and heard Mr Alpergin being tortured. He sustained 94 injuries and was tortured to death, his body later being dumped in woodland in Essex. A tracking device had been placed under his car as early as 23 September 2022 and replaced on 11 October 2022. The prosecution case was that the applicant was the man known at trial as 'Subject 2', who had been seen removing a device from beneath the deceased's car and who travelled with the group to the deceased's home. The applicant, who did not give or call evidence, denied being Subject 2. His submission of no case to answer and an earlier application to exclude the identification evidence were both rejected. On 31 July 2024 in the Central Criminal Court, before HHJ Sarah Whitehouse KC, he was convicted of manslaughter, one count of kidnapping and one count of false imprisonment, and acquitted of murder and of a further count each of kidnapping and false imprisonment. The single judge refused leave to appeal against conviction; the application was renewed.