Stephen Cuddy was stabbed in the chest as he did his Christmas shopping with his girlfriendStephen Cuddy was killed in Liverpool city centre
A 24-year-old drama student was meeting his girlfriend when he was killed outside St Luke’s Church, on Berry Street, in Liverpool city centre. Stephen Cuddy was randomly attacked by Keith Pinney and died from a single stab wound to the heart in December 1994.
Pinney was arrested, charged and admitted killing Stephen who lived in Aigburth at the time with his partner. It was later revealed the Canadian national had schizophrenia. The killing was one of the first to be caught on camera with Pinney denying murder but admitting manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
In the video, Pinney can be seen walking casually away from his victim, glancing in shop windows. Shoppers pass him in Bold Street unaware of the terrible crime he has committed. Liverpool Crown Court heard during sentencing in 1995 how Pinney had plunged a twelve-inch butcher’s knife into Stephen’s side.
The weapon pierced his heart and, despite help from passing medical personnel, he could not be saved. Pinney was handed an indefinite hospital order at Ashworth Hospital.
Speaking to the ECHO this week Stephen’s sister Alison, who was just 15 at the time, recalled the day of Stephen’s death having celebrated his birthday the day before at their family home in Runcorn.
She said: “I identified him with my mum. It’s something you never get out your head. The day before, we’d had a dinner at home and he was going off with his girlfriend to play pool. I’d had a dance competition in school and he was so made up we’d won.
“Literally the day after, me and my mum went to the shops around four o’clock and it was weird because we were both in black coats. I remember it vividly, those ’90s double-breasted coats and one of the neighbours said to us ‘has someone died?’.
Front page of the Liverpool Daily Post the day after Stephen Cuddy was killed
“Then, eight o’clock that evening I remember there was a knock at the door. It was just after Coronation Street had finished and there was a man standing there in his motorbike leathers. He was a policeman. He looked really serious.”
The 46-year-old added: “I remember it vividly, he didn’t say anything, he asked to come in and we sat in the living room. He said there had been an incident at St Luke’s Church and said my brother had been fatally stabbed. My God, in that moment you just go deaf, I can’t explain it.
“My mum couldn’t believe it, she just said ‘no, no, you’ve got it wrong’. She was in denial. Just 24 hours before we’d been with him.
“People say he was in the wrong place at the wrong time but he wasn’t. Stephen was in the right place at the right time and he was killed.”
It was later revealed how Pinney had been known to the Department of Health despite previously telling Stephen’s mum, Valerie, it wasn’t aware of the killer.
Pinney was diagnosed as psychotic in Ontario, Canada, in 1985, before being deported to the UK months later where he was arrested several times.
In 1992, he was detained in a west Wales hospital before he was sent back to Canada, diagnosed as schizophrenic, with “strong paranoid ideas of delusional intensity”.
Two years later he was arrested in Coventry for having an offensive weapon and disorderly conduct.
It was also revealed Pinney had previously assaulted a police woman in the weeks before travelling to Liverpool.
And months before he attacked Stephen at the bombed-out church, the schizophrenic had also been detained under the mental health act at St Luke’s hospital, London.
Paying tribute to her brother, Alison said: “Hearing from his friends from school, they give me more of an insight into what he was like during school. He was easy going and really caring towards others.
“I remember one time he didn’t have much money on him, he was probably around 21 and he gave the last of his money to someone that needed it to get the bus and he walked home. That’s the kind of thing he would do.
“He was so intelligent. He wanted to go into drama, that was his passion, and we actually found just before he died he got a role part in Blood Brothers.”
Stephen Cuddy with his younger sister Alison when they were children
Stephen’s mum fought for an inquiry into the death of her son, with it taking 15 years to win a High Court ruling which forced the government to make a decision on whether there would be a public inquiry into the missed opportunities to prevent the murder.
The then-Health Secretary Andy Burnham eventually ruled against a public inquiry with officials telling her lawyer it was “not in the public interest” and “too much time had elapsed” for the inquiry to be beneficial.
But according to Mrs Cuddy’s legal team at the time, their requests to review the case were ignored for years by the government.
Valerie died last year, with Alison explaining their relationship deteriorated after Stephen’s death, particularly after the family was denied a public inquiry.
Now, more than 20 years on from the death of her brother, Alison has launched an Instagram page called Mindful Teen World to help teenagers with trauma. She is using her page to raise awareness of the effects of knife crime after Stephen’s death and is hoping it can help people understand “it is not the tapestry of their future”.
Alison said: “This has been on the backburner for some time and I really want to build up the awareness around trauma. After Adolescence, it sparked something for me, watching that was amazing.
“I want teens to see the other side of knife crime, the victim’s family and what it does to them. Their life is over the second they pick up that knife and I just want to raise awareness around that.
“I also want people to know that just because they’re the victim of this, it’s not the tapestry of their future, the future’s unwritten. I’m doing training at the moment and I’ve been told to write a book. I’m trying to put together a course in the background at the moment too.”