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Colchester, Essex, England

Serial Killer: James Fairweather

● Case Closed Serial Homicide Stranger Violence Juvenile Offender
Victims
2 Confirmed
Span
March to June 2014
Location
Colchester, Essex, England
Cause of Death
Stab Wounds
Offender
James Fairweather
Age at Offense
15
Arrest
May 27, 2015
Status
Convicted, Minimum 27 Years
01
Victim Information

James Attfield and Nahid Almanea

James Attfield, victim
James "Jim" Attfield

James "Jim" Attfield was 33 years old, a father of five living in Colchester, Essex. He had a brain injury and struggled with alcohol dependency. On the night of March 29, 2014, he had been drinking in Castle Park, a public park in the center of Colchester, when he was attacked and killed.

Jim's mother, Julie Finch, later became a vocal presence in the case, speaking publicly at trial and afterward about the impact of her son's murder on their family.

No Photo
Available
Nahid Almanea

Nahid Almanea was 31 years old, a Saudi Arabian student at the University of Essex, where staff and friends remembered her as bright, talented, and a conscientious member of the university community. On the morning of June 17, 2014, she was walking along the Salary Brook nature trail in Colchester when she was attacked and killed.

02
What We Know

A Town Terrorized by a Hidden Teenager

In the early hours of March 29, 2014, a local man discovered the body of James Attfield in Castle Park, a public park in central Colchester. Attfield had been stabbed 102 times as he lay drunk and helpless in the park. Essex Police launched a major investigation, cordoning off a 1.5-mile area and briefly arresting and then releasing a 38-year-old man without charge. A £5,000 reward was offered for information, and detectives featured the case on BBC's Crimewatch alongside CCTV images of unidentified people seen in Castle Park the night Attfield was killed.

Nearly three months later, on the morning of June 17, 2014, Nahid Almanea, a 31-year-old University of Essex student, was attacked and killed in broad daylight while walking along the Salary Brook nature trail. She was stabbed multiple times, including wounds to both eyes, using a bayonet. Investigators soon connected the two killings, and the town lived under the fear of an unidentified serial killer for nearly a year.

In May 2015, police caught the person responsible while he was reportedly prowling the same area, apparently searching for a third victim. The offender was identified as James Fairweather, a 15-year-old local schoolboy attending Colchester Academy. His arrest stunned the community; investigators had spent more than a year searching for an adult serial killer.

At trial, Fairweather admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, claiming he believed he was possessed by the devil and heard voices compelling him to kill. A psychiatric expert testified that his description of these experiences sounded more like something taken from a horror film than a genuine clinical presentation. The jury rejected the diminished responsibility defense and convicted him of murder on both counts in April 2016.

03
Case Timeline

From First Murder to Conviction

March 29, 2014
James Attfield Killed in Castle Park
+

A local man finds the body of James Attfield, 33, in Castle Park at around 5:45 a.m. He had been stabbed 102 times. Essex Police launch a major investigation.

Early April 2014
Suspect Arrested and Released
+

A 38-year-old man is arrested in connection with Attfield's murder, then released the following day without charge. A £5,000 reward is offered for information, and the case is featured on BBC's Crimewatch with CCTV footage from Castle Park.

June 17, 2014
Nahid Almanea Killed on Salary Brook Trail
+

Nahid Almanea, 31, is attacked and killed in broad daylight while walking the Salary Brook nature trail. She is stabbed multiple times with a bayonet, including wounds to both eyes. Investigators connect the killing to Attfield's murder three months earlier.

June 2014 to May 2015
A Town Waits for a Serial Killer
+

For nearly a year, Essex Police conduct what Assistant Chief Constable Steve Worron later calls one of the force's biggest ever investigations, working under the assumption that an adult serial killer was responsible for both murders.

May 27, 2015
James Fairweather Arrested
+

Police apprehend James Fairweather, 15, reportedly while he is searching the same area for a third victim, bringing the killing spree to an end.

January 2016
Manslaughter Plea Entered
+

Fairweather pleads guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility for both deaths, claiming he believed he was possessed and heard voices compelling him to kill.

April 2016
Convicted and Sentenced
+

After a psychiatric expert testifies that Fairweather's described hallucinations sound more like fiction than genuine psychosis, a jury at Guildford Crown Court rejects the diminished responsibility defense and convicts him of murder on both counts. He is sentenced to detention for life with a minimum term of 27 years.

04
The Investigation

One of Essex Police's Largest Investigations

Essex Police and the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate worked the Attfield case for months, cordoning off a 1.5-mile area between Wakefield Close and Riverside Place and appealing to the public through a £5,000 reward and a BBC Crimewatch reconstruction. When Almanea was killed three months later using a similar method, detectives connected the two cases and began treating them as the work of a single, unidentified offender.

The investigation, one of the largest in the force's history, operated for nearly a year under the assumption that an adult serial killer was responsible. Fairweather was ultimately caught in the act of returning to the same area, reportedly searching for a third victim, ending an investigation that had struggled to connect a 15-year-old schoolboy to two seemingly random, brutal stranger killings.

Castle Park crime scene where James Attfield was killed
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Castle Park Crime Scene, James Attfield

Archival news coverage of the case:

05
The Accused

James Fairweather

James Fairweather at the time of his arrest
James Fairweather
Age 15 at Offenses, 17 at Conviction, Colchester, Essex
Relationship to Victims: Strangers; both victims were selected at random
Prior Record: Convicted of knifepoint robbery of cigars in January 2014, two months before the first murder
Plea: Manslaughter on grounds of diminished responsibility, rejected by the jury
Verdict: Guilty of murder on both counts, April 2016, Guildford Crown Court
Sentence: Detention for life, minimum term of 27 years

James Fairweather was convicted of murdering James Attfield and Nahid Almanea, becoming Britain's youngest known serial killer. He was 15 at the time of both killings and was caught nearly a year later, reportedly while searching for a third victim. At trial, he claimed to have believed he was possessed and hearing voices; a psychiatric expert testified this account resembled fiction rather than genuine illness, and the jury convicted him of murder rather than accepting his diminished responsibility plea.

Offender's Background

Fairweather was bullied at school for his prominent ears and struggled academically, in part due to dyslexia that went undiagnosed until he was in custody after his arrest. His grandmother's death in 2012, when he was around 13, reportedly affected him significantly. Around this period, he developed a documented obsession with real serial killers, researching their crimes well before committing his own. Two months before the first murder, he was convicted of a knifepoint robbery, an escalation from bullying and academic struggle to using a weapon to intimidate.

No documented history of abuse, neglect, or family instability appears in the reporting reviewed for this page. His documented struggles center on undiagnosed learning disability, social rejection at school, grief following a family death, and a specific, escalating fascination with real violent crime.

This is documented background, not an explanation for Fairweather's crimes. Undiagnosed dyslexia, bullying, and grief are experienced by large numbers of children who never go on to harm anyone; this is included because the combination of an unaddressed learning disability, social isolation, and an escalating fixation on real violence is a pattern researchers studying juvenile violent offending consider worth understanding, not because any one of these factors caused what he did.

Things to Note

Context Around This Case

An Investigation That Assumed an Adult Offender +
An Undiagnosed Learning Disability +
Caught While Seeking a Third Victim +
In Memoriam

James Attfield and Nahid Almanea

James Attfield was a father of five who struggled with the aftermath of a brain injury and with alcohol, but he was still someone's son, and his mother, Julie Finch, never stopped fighting for him to be remembered as more than a headline. Nahid Almanea traveled thousands of miles from home to study at the University of Essex, and the people who knew her there remembered a bright, talented, conscientious young woman with a future ahead of her.

Neither of them knew the person who took their lives. They were simply walking through their own town, on an ordinary night and an ordinary morning, when someone decided their lives were his to take. James and Nahid are remembered together, not as strangers connected only by tragedy, but as two people who deserved to come home.

James Attfield, memorial photo
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