Vitalijs Janovics

Vitalijs Janovics was stabbed in the heart near to the Thames Path and Bermondsey Wall East or Jamaica Road in Bermondsey in the early hours of 22 July 2011.

Two men were charged for his murder and tried at the Old Bailey but acquitted. Their case was dropped after the prosecution stated that there was no longer a reasonable prospect of conviction.

Vitalijs Janovics had arrived at Bermondsey tube station shortly before midnight on 21 July 2011 on his way home after finishing work earlier in the evening at the Cafe in the Crypt, in St Martin's on the Fields, Trafalgar Square where he worked as a part-time silver service waiter around 8pm.

He then went to the Payless Food and Wine Store on Jamaica Road where he bought some alcohol and cigarettes and then went to a cash machine on Jamaica Road and withdrew £100 at 12.08am.

He was thought then to have walked off towards Bermondsey Wall East and the Thames Path.

He was later seen again in the Payless Food and Wine Store on Jamaica Road where he tried to buy more alcohol. He was next seen on CCTV in Jamaica Road and then went up to a man at a bus stop at 1.05am and shown him that he had been stabbed and then collapsed. He had left a 75m long trail of blood.

An ambulance was called for him at 1.10am on 22 July 2011. He was taken to King’s College Hospital where he was pronounced dead soon after. His cause of death was given as a single stab wound to the heart.

It was thought that he had not been aware that he had been stabbed because he had been drunk and that he had afterwards walked back to the shop to buy more alcohol before collapsing in the street from his injury

It was said that he would have collapsed about 30 seconds to a minute after having received the injury.

When he was found, no money was missing from him.

The police said they were interested in determining what he had been doing in the hour between withdrawing money from the cash machine at 12.08am and collapsing in the street around 1.05am. They said that they were also interested in finding out what he had done in the period after leaving work at 8pm and arriving at Bermondsey tube station shortly before midnight.

At the time the police said that they were interested in speaking to two groups of witnesses. The first was a group of three white men who had been sitting on steps near to a bus stop where Vitalijs Janovics collapsed. The second group were said to have numbered about eleven and had got off the last Tube train at Bermondsey tube station at about 1am.

The two men that were tried for his murder were said to have been seen in the area close to where some of Vitalijs Janovics's blood was found and it was suggested that the blood had dripped off the murder weapon. However, the defence noted that there was another spot of blood found in an area that they were not known to have been in that night and the case collapsed.

Later in 2013 three other men were arrested for his murder but released without charge.

The police said that his attack was probably random and that he had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Vitalijs Janovics had lived in Long Lane, SE1 and had a child.