Convicted knife thug found guilty of murdering Harry Potter star Rob Knox

Karl Bishop, 22, was wielding two kitchen knives when he stabbed the talented 18-year-old and five of his friends outside the Metro bar in Sidcup, south-east London, last May.

Witnesses to the terrifying ordeal described the killer’s face “screwed up in rage,” as he slashed his victims more than 10 times in less than two minutes.

Mr Knox, who had just finished filming scenes for the new Harry Potter film, had rushed outside to try to protect his younger brother Jamie after hearing Bishop had threatened him.

But his “courage and sense of duty” cost him his life, as Bishop stabbed him five times, once fatally in a main artery.

He died in hospital alter that evening.

Evil Bishop, who was convicted at the Old Bailey today, faces life in prison for murder.

After Rob was killed, his mother, Sally, 50, said she regretted not celebrating his big break with him.

“I played it down,” she said. “As a mother, I didn’t want him to get big-headed, not that he ever was. If I could turn back the clock, I’d have made more of it, been more involved.

“I thought I had the rest of my life with him. He took a few friends to the studio to watch him and I wish I had gone.”

Today the court heard how Bishop saw stabbing people as an "occupational hazard,' thinking nothing of carrying weapons around and deliberately starting fights.

Before murdering Knox, Bishop had got into another fight and had gone home to where he lived with his mother to fetch two knives.

He said: “I took two because two was scarier than one and I was angry at that time.

“I just wanted to scare whoever was down there, I wasn’t really thinking that straight at the time because I was so angry, p***** off.”

After fatally wounding and stabbing Mr Knox and his friends, Bishop claimed it was his victims who had been “going mad” and that it was their fault for “running into” his knife.

A police officer said after his arrest he showed no remorse, saying “yeah, sweet” when told Rob had died, and seemed to be more bothered about missing a Ricky Hatton fight.

Brian Altman QC, prosecuting, said: “This man carries knives like others carry pens in their pockets and quite happily thinks little or nothing of stabbing others as if it were some occupational hazard.”

Bishop was just three years older than Rob but their lives were a world apart.

While the young actor was looking forward to reprising his role as Marcus Belby in the next instalment of the Harry Potter series, Bishop was already mired in a life of drinking, violence and prison.

At the age of 15 Bishop faced charges for threatening a youth he knew with a knife but the allegations were dropped when he appeared in court.

In another confrontation later that year outside a cab office he slashed the same youth, and his friend, across the face, leaving one needing five stitches and the other with a cut on his nose.

In May 2005 he pleaded guilty to wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, and causing actual bodily harm and was in jail until March 2007.

When he was arrested for the attack on Rob, he bragged of how he had done “bird” before and jail to him simply meant free meals and free use of the gym.

Pc Craig Reid said there “didn’t appear to be any remorse” when he was told of Rob’s death but later he ranted: “Oh, f***’s sake, f****** hell, I’m going to miss the f****** Hatton fight, f****** hell”.

The officer said Bishop’s stabbing frenzy had left a pool of blood “as far as my arms could stretch” on the pavement.