A man shot dead by police in south London after forcing his way into a building with an arsenal of weapons had been convicted of stalking.
The 30-year-old, who was armed with crossbows, a knife, a sword and a hatchet, is understood to have been Bryce Hodgson, who was given a suspended jail term last year, placed under supervision and subjected to a restraining order.
The Metropolitan police were called to the address in Bywater Place, Surrey Quays, shortly before 5am on Tuesday. Unarmed officers tried to speak to him but were threatened, and by the time armed police officers arrived he had entered the building.
The man, who was wearing body armour, was given first aid after being shot but died at the scene.
Investigators from the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) watchdog attended the scene.
The dead man was known to at least one of the occupants of the address, the watchdog said. It also said police bodycam footage confirmed he was trying to threaten people at the property. He previously lived on the same street.
The Crown Prosecution Service confirmed that Hodgson was handed a 16-week suspended jail term in July last year and put under supervision for 12 months after admitting stalking.
He was convicted of stalking involving serious alarm or distress for entering a woman’s bedroom without her consent, texting her to demand she open her door, and describing vivid sexual fantasies to her, between January and April last year.
He was also put under a five-year restraining order that banned him from entering Bywater Place in Surrey Quays, south-east London, where he was shot on Tuesday, and from contacting the woman.
Hodgson had studied economics at Aberystwyth University. Former friends have said he was from a middle-class background and was a heavy cannabis user who had signs of mental health difficulties.
His father was a university lecturer and pro-vice-chancellor, his mother a teacher and his younger sister went to drama school. Growing up, Hodgson lived in Sheffield, Leicester and near Middlesbrough.
Hodgson graduated in 2014 but friends saying he left Aberystwyth in significant levels of debt and owed money to his landlord, a cannabis dealer and friends. He rarely went out to socialise and “struggled” with girls, former friends said.
Jon, 32, an acquaintance of Hodgson’s at university, told the Guardian he was a “shy and retiring guy” who was bullied at school and university. “There were strange things about him,” Jon said. “He was a cannabis smoker – far beyond what a normal student smoked. His housemates said he was quite hard to live with him, he would be in his room on days on end.”
Jon said Hodgson had been a member of a paintball society and owned several weapons including a paintball gun, flash grenade and knives. “He had drunkenly threatened people with the paintball guns.”
Hodgson and a friend had set up a cafe at university but he was accused of defrauding his business partner. “Big chunks of money went missing,” Jon said.
“One of the reasons he left Aberystwyth; he’d nicked money off a landlord, didn’t pay his rent,” Jon added. “He had also stolen some money off a cannabis dealer who had left money at the house.
“It’s just really sad, despite all those negative things. He always clearly had mental issues. So really sad. He was a clever young man. He was good with economics and politics.”
Jon said Hodgson was “spending insane amounts” of money on cannabis and managed to keep his debt and drug problems from his family. “He would order hundreds of pounds’ worth a month off the dark web,” he said “That exacerbated his mental issues. He was a paranoid person. It’s sad to see, what a complete waste of a life.”
Jon said Hodgson could be “quite misogynistic” and would record people’s conversations and look up people’s internet history.
Jack Stone, a former university housemate of Hodgson’s, told the Guardian: “He was a very eccentric character. He was fun and quirky, and in all honesty, seemed completely harmless and incapable of doing anything so dramatic on this scale. He was often very funny. So it genuinely comes as quite a shock.
“But now that it has happened, and I look back on his behaviour and personality, there were a couple of red flags. He never spoke to girls, ever.
“Another red flag was he seemed to not understand when to stop. He would allow arguments and things to escalate too far.
“His eccentricity at the time made him fun and entertaining, and we did have a lot of laughs. He made me laugh a lot, actually. It was why we hung out with him, but it was worrying that he didn’t seem to have a limit.”
After university, Hodgson just “disappeared”, the friend said, after he and others moved to different places.
