Videos and messages show killer's obsession with knives that ended in senseless murder

Moving up and down in the view of the camera, a blade glistening in the reflection of a light hanging in Alfie Franco's bedroom - showing off his true obsession.

- By SOPHIE CORCORAN

It was the latest in his ‘artillery. The wooden-handled, large knife had come in a sheath and had been purchased from a shop in Bradford weeks before Franco used its sister blade to cut the throat of Ahmad Mamdouh al Ibrahim. He'd bought the pair together.

Skulking in his room, Franco, 20, took videos and pictures of the knives, sending them to his friends in South Africa. He claimed one replied back to a picture he sent with the caption: “Artillery coming along nice.”

He claimed he had wanted to ‘impress’ them with his collection of fatal weapons. A lot of excuses Franco made up during his trial where he was convicted of Anmad’s murder followed a similar vein. He tried making up lies to hide his interest in knives, even though the evidence was there staring jurors in the face.

Images of knives, videos, screenshots of Amazon pages for sheaths for sale for just over £3. The list went on. Even more chilling was the messages he had sent 17 hours before Ahmad's murder.