‘Psycho’ killed man in bid for notoriety

Kiaran Stapleton was a man lacking an identity before he walked up to Indian student Anuj Bidve and shot him in the left temple.

In his own eyes Stapleton was a nobody in his tough neighbourhood while living in the crowded family home in Ordsall, Salford in Manchester after splitting up with his girlfriend and the mother of his young daughter.

Although of low intelligence, the factory worker was streetwise enough to know that committing such a heinous random act would create a permanent impression in his community.

Barely five hours after committing murder in the early hours of St Stephen’s Day last year, he was feverishly typing in internet searches for “Salford shooting” on his mobile phone.

Early news reports gave the barest details so Stapleton, 21, chose perversely to get closer to the action and revel in the chaos that he created.

He booked into the Campanile Hotel which overlooked the crime scene.

Friends were invited to his room and he had no hesitation in telling them he was the gunman, safe in the knowledge that word would spread about his anti-heroantics.

He took photographs of himself on his mobile phone — smiling in a bathrobe and posing in a mean stare.

Buoyed by his dodging of the authorities, he rounded up more friends and visited a local tattoo parlour where he had a teardrop tattoo inked below his right eye— a design which can indicate the wearer has killed someone.

His hunger for notoriety stepped up a gear when he adopted his own twisted nickname after being charged with murder. Making his first appearance before magistrates he was asked if his name wasKiaran Stapleton. “No,” he replied quickly. “Psycho. Psycho Stapleton.”

Flippant remarks were his stock in trade and he could not help himself while giving evidence. It culminated in a cocksure rant when asked if he had hoped his sentence would be reduced on grounds of diminished responsibility.

He replied: “To be honest I’m not bothered. I love prison, I watch CoronationStreet, I have got a fat canteen. Lock me up for 65 years. Does this face lookbothered?”

Stapleton walked up to stranger Anuj Bidve, 23, in the street in Salford, and shot him in the head at point blank range. Stapleton had admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility but a jury at Manchester Crown Court rejected that argument and yesterday convicted him of murder. He will be sentenced today.

Bidve had arrived in Britain last September to embark on postgraduate studies in micro-electronics. He was visiting Manchester with a group of friends from Lancaster University last Christmas.

They left their hotel in the early hours of Dec 26 to queue early for the sales when their paths crossed with Stapleton’s.

He calmly walked across the road and repeatedly asked for the time. When someone finally answered he pulled a handgun out of his pocket and fired one shot to Bidve’s left temple.

He was then seen to smirk or laugh over his victim’s body before he ran off. The weapon, which fired a 9mm bullet, has not been found.

Bidve never regained consciousness and was pronounced dead in hospital.

Stapleton later told a psychologist he picked out his victim because “he had the biggest head”.