47-Year-Old Prisoner Gets Life Imprisonment for Beating his Cellmate to Death With a Television

According to the Mirror,  Taras Nykolyn admitted to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility following his vicious attack on his cellmate Wadid Barsoum. Barsoum, a 67-year-old man, was said to have died after the attack which took place inside HMP Wandsworth at around 7.35am on May 4 last year. A post-mortem examination found the cause of his death to be a head injury, which was believed to have been inflicted by Taras with an old-style television.



Detective Sergeant Matthew Read, of the Homicide and Major Crime Command, said: “It is not known what led to the attack on Wadid Barsoum, but he suffered an extremely violent attack at the hands of Nykolyn before he died.”  Taras was sentenced to life imprisonment, to serve a minimum of seven-and-a-half years. He was also made subject of a Hospital Order under the Mental Health Act.

Nykolyn also pleaded guilty to one count of inflicting grievous bodily harm, during an incident on Wimbledon Common June 19, 2014, for which he was on remand at the time of the manslaughter.

“I hope that today’s sentence goes some way towards helping his family come to terms with his death.” Sergeant Matthew Read added.