A burglar has been jailed for 32 years for stabbing a pensioner to death after breaking into his home.

Aaron De Silva stabbed Joseph Griffiths 22 times and he was found by his wife and a friend in a pool of blood following the “completely brutal and overwhelming assault” in November 2012.

He admitted manslaughter but was found guilty at the Old Bailey of murdering the 73-year old.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said the 21-year-old, of Earls Court, south west London, was also sentenced to 12 years to run consecutively after admitting aggravated burglary armed with a lock knife.

It is believed Mr Griffiths interrupted De Silva and challenged him after he woke up during the burglary at his home in Fulham, South West London, early that morning.

A post-mortem examination found the businessman, who had two grown-up sons and seven grandchildren, died of multiple stab wounds.

After the attack De Silva was caught on CCTV taking a “cool, calm and collected walk” back to the Earls Court hostel where he was staying to wash his clothes and get rid of evidence.

Footage of him at the hostel about an hour after the murder showed him listening to music, seemingly entirely unaffected by what he had just done.

He was arrested at the Opendoor Housing Trust Hostel three days later.

The court heard that on the morning of November 10, De Silva went into a number of gardens on Hazlebury Road before stealing a pair of bolt croppers from an unlocked garden shed.

Using the tool, he broke a rear window on the basement level of Mr Griffiths’ nearby six-storey terraced home and walked around the lower two levels before launching the fatal attack.

Mr Griffiths had been sleeping in a separate bedroom from his wife Judy on the ground floor of the home they had lived in for 50 years while family friends, who were visiting for a wedding, slept on the second floor.

A victim impact statement by his eldest son Mark Griffiths, 53, was previously read out to the court.

“The murder of Joe in such a senseless manner has left a gaping hole not just in our family, but every family who knew him,” it said.

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A prolific burglar has been convicted of murdering a grandfather who he stabbed to death in his London home.

Aaron De Silva, 21, stabbed Joseph Griffiths, 73, 22 times after breaking into his house in Hazlebury Road, Fulham, early on 10 November, 2012.

De Silva had tried to plead guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

However, the prosecution refused to accept the plea and he was tried for murder.

Successive psychiatric reports found that while De Silva may have had a personality disorder, he was suffering no mental illness at the time of the killing.

De Silva has 31 previous convictions, including robbery, assault, burglary and carrying a knife.

He told the jury at the Old Bailey he regularly carried a blade because it was “cool”.

Mr Griffiths’ wife Judith described to the court during the trial how she had heard an “awful sound” the night her husband was attacked and then found him lying motionless in a pool of blood outside his bedroom.

Prosecutor Brendan Finucane QC said it was “a completely brutal and overwhelming assault on an elderly man in his own house where he was knifed 22 times to his body”.

Mr Griffiths was a successful businessman who had run a mechanics in Fulham for nearly 20 years.

He and his wife had lived in their home for more than 50 years.

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