Ex-Magic Circle lawyer who injected food with blood found not guilty by reason of insanity

A London lawyer, who caused £500,000 worth of damage by injecting his own blood into food in supermarkets, has been found not guilty by reason of insanity.

Leoaai Elghareeb, 37, was found not guilty, after he entered three supermarkets – Sainsbury’s Local, Tesco Express, and Little Waitrose – on Fulham Palace Road carrying a bucketful of hyperdermic needles.

The solicitor then injected food products sitting on shelves, including an apple and a pack of Chicken tikka fillets, with his own blood, before he assaulted staff and threw a plant pot through a restaurant window.

The incident caused £500,000 of damage as the three supermarkets were forced to throw away all of their products.

Although Elghareeb had previously worked for one of London’s prestigious Magic Circle law firms, the solicitor later took up smoking methamphetamine as part of a “work hard, play hard” lifestyle.  

The Lebanese lawyer was first admitted as a solicitor in 2011 and specialises in corporate law and mergers & acquisitions, according to a profile of Elghareeb on the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA).

Consultant forensic psychiatrist Dr Frank Farnham told the court Elghareeb suffered from “severe disease of the mind resulting in a loss of a sense of reality,” the Independent reported.

The psychiatrist added that the lawyer heard voices, including that of Boris Johnson’s, controlling his dreams and commanding him to act in certain ways.

The doctor said Elghareeb had been suffereing from psychosis at the time of the incident, as he noted psychotic episodes could be caused by various illnesses including depression and schizophrenia.

The decision comes after a jury failed to come to a verdict in February, after deliberating for seven hours and 20 minutes.