HEALTH chiefs have apologised after a rapist was convicted of murdering a pensioner while on the run from a secure mental health unit.
Terrence O’Keefe, 39, from Liverpool, killed 73-year-old David Kemp in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, in March, 2008. Prosecutors told Norwich Crown Court that O’Keefe strangled Mr Kemp, then stole his television to raise money to buy drugs.
Police did not initially think Mr Kemp, who lived alone in a flat, had been murdered.
But about a month after his death, one of O’Keefe’s associates contacted police and pointed the finger.
O’Keefe, who denied murder, had escaped from a unit in London where he was serving a life sentence imposed in 1996 for rape and robbery. A spokesman for South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust said O’Keefe’s escape “should not have happened” and apologised unreservedly.
Mr Justice Saunders adjourned sentencing to a date to be fixed, probably in September.
