‘Loner’ heir of £230,000,000 pie fortune jailed for killing flatmate

An heir to a multimillion pound fortune, who murdered his flatmate when he learnt the 23-year-old was moving out, has been jailed.

Dylan Thomas, 24, – described as a loner – killed his best friend William Bush in a ‘ferocious’ stabbing attack on Christmas eve 2023.

He was jailed for life today at Cardiff Crown Court with a minimum term of 19 years.

Thomas felt betrayed by Mr Bush – a former classmate – after learning he was moving out to live with his girlfriend Ella, the court heard.

He had looked up details of the anatomy of the neck before launching the sustained and frenzied attack at their flat in the affluent suburb of Llandaff in Cardiff some hours later.

Thomas is the grandson of property tycoon and businessman Sir Stanley Thomas, who founded Peter’s Pies and had an estimated net worth of £230 million in 2013.

The court heard Thomas armed himself with a large kitchen knife and ablack lock knife or flick knife and stabbed Mr Bush to the back of the neck, the head and the chest.

The pair went down two flights of stairs and outside onto a patio where Mr Bush collapsed after suffering a fatal cut to the artery in his neck, causing him to bleed to death.

The court heard how witnesses called 999 to help Mr Bush – while Thomas called the ambulance service for his own injuries.

When officers performed CPR scene, Thomas told them: ‘He’s dead, I have f****** disarmed him.

‘I killed him. He came at me and I stabbed him. He attacked me. It was self-defence.’

Thomas later claimed he was suffering from an ‘abnormality of mind’ because of psychosis and schizophrenia.

However, after a nine day trial a jury found him guilty of murder. 

In a victim impact statement, Mr Bush’s sister Catrin said: ‘Will’s life was taken away from him on December 24 2023 in the most barbaric and cruel way.

‘Will was innocently getting things sorted to return back to Brecon to spend Christmas with us as a family. But instead of Will returning home for dinner on Christmas Eve, it was Dyfed-Powys Police knocking on our door informing us that Will had died.

‘I cannot put into words how traumatic and awful this experience was, and I still have intense moments of panic when I think about this.

‘Myself and Alex cannot begin to comprehend the fear and suffering that Will endured on that day. We are truly haunted from the horror of it and this will live with us forever.’

Mr Bush’s father, John, meanwhile said in his victim statement: ‘This is not normal grief, where death is part of human existence and loss can be accepted and memories of loved ones celebrated. We are not there yet, and there is not yet any closure for us.

‘We carry on with our own lives, but we know we are always pretending.’

Mr Bush’s girlfriend Ella said: ‘Will was the love of my life and meant everything to me. Life will never be the same without Will.’

Judge Karen Steyn told Thomas that he ‘took away’ Will from his family and girlfriend in a ‘ferocious murder attack’.

She described Will as a ‘young man who had been a firm and loyal friend to you for a decade’.

From the victim statements, she said it was clear that Will was ‘a compassionate, loving, whitty’ young man – and ‘loved by so many and popular with everyone he met.’

Mr Bush was a talented sportsman – with a passion for rugby and played county golf.

Thomas, meanwhile, was said to be a loner with very few friends.

The pair went to the £13,000-a-term Christ College in Brecon.

Thomas’ parents, Sir Stanley’s son Scott Thomas and former Vogue model Kirstie Howells separated when he was three years old.

The jury was only told there was only ‘alleged domestic violence’ between the couple.

However, his father Scott had previously been jailed for six months after a violent attack on Miss Howells, who is 10 years his junior, at the mansion they shared.

He beat her about the head with a telephone after she tried to call the police – causing blood to splatter over the walls in front of their then two-year-old son Thomas.

At one point Scott shouted: ‘I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you.’

At the time, the court heard that young Thomas and his stepbrother Kellen, five, were shut in the kitchen while the dad continued the ‘frenzied assault.’

Miss Howells managed to run from the house and flag down a passing motorist, who described her as being ‘a bloody mess’.

Having spent time in Wales, his mother then moved away to Sussex and ran a modelling agency.

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