THIS is the chilling moment an “insane” solicitor injected food at Sainsbury’s with his own BLOOD in a £500,000 rampage.
Leoaai Elghareeb, 37, wandered into two other stores on Fulham Palace Road in London with a bucketful of hypodermic needles as he jabbed at products including Chicken Tikka Fillets.
The solicitor also threw a syringe at a doctor but luckily it bounced off her causing no injuries.
The three supermarkets – Sainsbury’s Local, Tesco Express and Little Waitrose – had to throw away all their products as a precaution, causing nearly £500,000 in losses.
There is no dispute Elghareeb carried out the offences and his defence is that he was, in the legal sense, insane at the time he carried out those acts.
He denied three counts of contaminating goods and two counts of assault and a jury at Isleworth Crown Court was sent out earlier today to consider its verdicts by Judge Alistair Hammerton.
Elghareeb targeted Waitrose, Sainsbury’s and then Tesco during the evening of 25 August last year.
CCTV footage played in court shows Elghareeb entering Sainsbury’s wearing distinctive Nike shorts and an American football-style t-shirt.
He can be seen striding over to the ready meal section before dramatically jabbing food with a syringe.
He then walks over to the next section, eyeing up the food products while holding what appears to be another syringe in his mouth before injecting a second food product.
Elghareeb is also accused of assaulting Dr Meghana Kulkarni by throwing a needle at her and pushing security guard Bilal Ansari in the chest while shouting: “You are all vile people and Sainsbury’s is vile.”
Dr Bradley Hillier, a consultant forensic psychiatrist, told the court Elghareeb was “severely psychotic” at the time and could not appreciate that his actions were “legally and morally wrong”.
He said: “He was not thinking straight.
“He was in a situation where he was trying to escape this worth that the psychosis had created for him.
“He was so burdened and tortured, is the word he used.”
Elghareeb, of Crabtree Lane, Fulham, denies three counts of contaminating goods and two counts of assault by reason of insanity.
The jury is now out considering its verdicts.
