Nicholas Brandram, 44, was found dead at his West London home while awaiting trial in the notorious “Putney Pusher” case.
The former HSBC Private Bank senior manager and ex-British Army captain was discovered unresponsive inside his Chiswick property at approximately 7:12 p.m. On Tuesday, September 15, the Metropolitan Police confirmed in a statement. Emergency responders pronounced him dead at the scene, and his next of kin have been informed.
“At 19:12hrs on Tuesday, 15 September officers and the London Ambulance Service attended an address in Chiswick, Hounslow after a man was found unresponsive inside a property,” police said. “Sadly, a 44-year-old man was pronounced dead at the scene. His next of kin have been informed.”
His death is being treated as “unexpected” and is not believed to be suspicious, according to authorities. Further details surrounding the circumstances were not immediately available.
Brandram’s arrest on June 15 had ended a nearly decade-long manhunt for the unidentified jogger who shocked London in 2017. Officers took him into custody at his $1.8 million home, and he was subsequently charged with attempted grievous bodily harm.
The disturbing assault occurred on May 5, 2017, when surveillance cameras captured a jogger shoving a 33-year-old woman directly into the path of an oncoming double-decker bus on Putney Bridge. The bus driver executed an emergency swerve, narrowly avoiding running over the woman’s head. She escaped with only minor injuries despite the life-threatening encounter.
Approximately fifteen minutes after the initial attack, the same jogger was recorded passing the scene again and ignoring pleas from bystanders to stop, according to the footage that circulated widely.
Brandram carried notable royal lineage that drew additional attention to the case. He was a grandson of Princess Katherine of Greece and Denmark, who herself was the great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria. This bloodline connected him to the UK’s reigning House of Windsor and other European royal dynasties. His royal ties were publicly recognized in 2012 when he received a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal commemorating the monarch’s six decades on the throne.
The arrest had come after years of frustrated investigation, with the unidentified attacker having earned the tabloid nickname “Putney Pusher” from the location of the assault in southwest London. The case had remained one of the city’s most infamous unsolved street attacks until the June breakthrough.
Brandram had not yet entered a plea or faced trial at the time of his death. The case against him was still proceeding through the court system, with the charges of attempted grievous bodily harm hanging over the former military officer and finance executive.
The original victim, whose identity was never publicly revealed, had survived the bridge incident with injuries so minor they seemed almost impossible given the footage of the bus’s near-miss. The driver’s quick reaction had been credited with saving her life that morning in May 2017.
