A SOLICITOR at a corporate law firm was stabbed to death by two muggers yards from his home.

Thomas Ap Rhys Pryce, 31, suffered wounds to his head, body, legs and hands as he tried to fight off the men.

The litigation lawyer, who worked for Linklaters in the City of London, had been out with colleagues on Thursday evening and was returning to the home he shared with his fiancée, Adele Eastman, in northwest London. The couple were due to marry in September.

Mr Rhys Price called Miss Eastman at 10.50pm to say that he expected to be home 40 minutes later. After taking a train to Kensal Green station he walked towards his terraced house but was jumped on by two men in their teens or early twenties.

They stole personal items and cash before repeatedly stabbing him. His bag burst open and printouts of his wedding plans were scattered across the street. Neighbours who saw the attack called police.

As Mr Rhys Pryce tried to stagger towards his home the men continued to stab him. He collapsed on the ground and the robbers fled.

As paramedics tried to revive him, and a police helicopter hovered overhead, Miss Eastman, an employment lawyer with Farrer & Co, the royal solicitors, heard the commotion and came out of her home but was unaware that he was the victim.

Mr Rhys Pryce, a former pupil of Marlborough College and graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, was taken to the Central Middlesex Hospital, where he was declared dead.

Describing the attack on Mr Rhys Pryce, Detective Superintendent Julian Worker, of Metropolitan Police homicide command, said yesterday: “He was violently and, in my opinion, gratuitously attacked by one or more of his two assailants.

“Adele saw the activity in the street and came outside. She spoke to police at the scene. But we don’t believe that she saw her fiancé. She is absolutely distraught.”

John Turnbull, head of litigation at Linklaters, said: “We are all shocked by this dreadful news. Tom was a good friend and colleague. We are offering all the help we can to his fiancée and family.”

Mr Rhys Pryce’s mother, Estella, travelled yesterday to be with Miss Eastman.

• Matthew Smith, 21, of Norwood, southeast London, was shot dead by a gang who mugged his friends of their mobile phones as he lay dying. The attack, in Streatham, happened when they parked their car outside flats. Police are questioning a 20-year-old man arrested in Lambeth.

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