A Breaking Bad fan has been jailed for life for strangling a police officer during a bondage sex session and then attempting to cook and eat parts of his body.
Stefano Brizzi, 50, admitted he was inspired by his favourite TV series as he tried to get away with killing 59-year-old Pc Gordon Semple by also dissolving his flesh in an acid bath.
Last month, the former Morgan Stanley IT developer was found guilty of murder by a majority of 10 to two after a jury at the Old Bailey had deliberated for more than 30 hours.
Brizzi denied trying to cannibalise parts of Pc Semple by cooking and then biting into a rib found in his kitchen bin.
But at his sentencing, the prosecution said an expert odontologist had since confirmed that even though Brizzi claimed not to remember it, he had in fact tried to eat human flesh.
Judge Nicholas Hilliard QC handed crystal meth addict Brizzi life in prison with a minimum of 24 years.
Brizzi was also sentenced to seven years for obstructing a coroner, which will run concurrently.
The judge said there were “terrible features” of the case and that Brizzi’s drug addiction had ruined his life.
He told the Italian: “Regret you express now for Mr Semple’s death has to be seen against what you did over a number of days to his body.”
The defendant sat in the dock with his head bowed throughout the hearing.
Prosecutor Crispin Aylett QC confirmed that an odontologist found that Brizzi had eaten part the body of his victim after matching a bite mark on a rib discarded in the kitchen bin with the defendant’s lower teeth.
He told the court: “It would be open to my lord to sentence on the basis Mr Brizzi did indeed attempt to eat part of Pc Semple’s body.”
In mitigation, Sallie Bennett-Jenkins QC blamed Brizzi’s crystal meth addiction as she accepted the expert evidence.
She said: “The behaviour can only be ascribed to taking of the drug crystal meth, which, as the court will know, has appalling effects on those who become addicted to it.”
Brizzi had “absolutely no recollection” of it and was “utterly horrified by it”, the barrister added
In a victim impact statement read to the court, Pc Semple’s older brother, Ronald Semple, said his sibling had been regarded as a “Dixon of Dock Green character”.
He said his brother first took a job at RBS but then joined the police in October 1993 and completed more than 30 years’ service.
He ran several marathons and organised trips to France and elsewhere for charity.
Pc Semple was a “caring and gentle person” and “much loved” by his family, who were left devastated with the news of his murder, the court heard.
Mr Semple said he had met many of his brother’s colleagues at the funeral and was proud to hear the high regard in which he was held by junior and senior officers alike.
The trial had heard that Brizzi met his victim on gay dating app Grindr and arranged a “hot, dirty, sleazy session” at his flat near London’s Tate Modern gallery on April 1.
According to Brizzi, Pc Semple died when a dog leash he had been wearing slipped as they played a “strangulation game”.
But a pathologist concluded that while strangulation was a possible cause of death, it would have taken minutes rather than moments, as the defendant had claimed.
In the days after the killing, Brizzi was caught on CCTV buying buckets, a perforated metal sheet and cleaning products from a DIY store.
He then set about dismembering the body, stripping the flesh, burning some in the oven and mixing some with acid in the bath.
Pc Semple’s long-term partner, Gary Meeks, reported him missing when he failed to return to their home in Dartford, Kent.
Neighbours complained about the stench coming from Brizzi’s flat and eventually called police, who came across the grisly sight of “globules” of flesh floating in the bath, bags containing bones and a part of Pc Semple’s head, and pools of human fat in the oven.
Brizzi, who was wearing pink underpants and sunglasses, was arrested as officers realised the enormity of what they had found.
The court heard there was evidence in the kitchen that Brizzi had chopped up the Inverness-born officer with a variety of utensils and may have even used chopsticks to eat morsels of cooked meat.
Following his arrest, Brizzi admitted killing and trying to dissolve the body of the policeman because “Satan told me to”.
During the killing, he said he had turned away a man on his doorstep who had arrived for a sex party organised on Grindr.
Brizzi said: “I was right in the middle of strangling Gordon and I said to him ’Look, this is not the right time now, people are falling ill and it’s a mess’.”
He also told police that he had “chucked” some of Pc Semple’s body into the Thames and thrown away his police badge and belongings.
A human foot was later found by a member of Thames Mudlark Club near Bermondsey Wall.
The court heard that Brizzi had gone to Crystal Meth Anonymous meetings, but upset people by wearing a Breaking Bad T-shirt as the show “glorified” the drug.
In his home, police found a mask and dog leash with Pc Semple’s DNA on it as well as a copy of the Satanic Bible.