Murderer, mad man, misfit? Making sense of the murder of Zahid Mubarek

This article addresses the question of why Robert Stewart killed Zahid Mubarek in Feltham Young Offender Institute in April 2000, with the aim of asking what it would take to prevent more young people becoming as hateful as Stewart had. By re-examining Stewart’s voluminous correspondence, and the records and reports about him placed in the public domain during the course of the Zahid Mubarek Inquiry, the article explores the acute loneliness, lack of self worth, and desire to be wanted that Stewart’s peculiarly sexualized expressions of racism betrayed. The article argues that Stewart’s racism was fuelled by powerful defences against loss that had been built up in childhood and reinforced by the acute estrangement from family, friends, and a woman Stewart considered to be his ‘girlfriend’. In custody, Stewart felt intimidated by his emotional dependency on others; he started to feel persecuted by Zahid Mubarek precisely because his Asian cellmate was one of so few people in whom he could confide. The cycle of mutual projection that had come to characterise life on the wings in Feltham blinded many of the staff there to the vulnerability of both Mubarek - an Asian prisoner locked up with a highly disturbed white racist – and Stewart – a deeply disturbed young man with very limited experiences of adequate care.