Three teenagers who stabbed to death a 16-year-old London schoolboy are facing life imprisonment after being convicted yesterday of his murder.
In five seconds, Jade Braithwaite, Juress Kika, and Michael Alleyne stabbed Ben Kinsella 11 times after a row about “disrespect” in a bar.
Ben, who had written to the Prime Minister urging him to halt the growing menace of knife crime, was the 17th teenager to die on the streets of the capital last year. After his death a GCSE essay he had written about how it would feel if he were stabbed to death was found among his possessions.
The boy, who dreamt of becoming a graphic designer, had no involvement in the drunken row that triggered the attack.
Only now can it be reported that at the time one of the killers was on the run for stabbing a man in the chest and another had been released three months previously, after a conviction for dealing crack cocaine and heroin.
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When the Old Bailey jury returned guilty verdicts, Ben’s mother Deborah, 46, father George, 48, and their daughter Brooke, an actress who has appeared in EastEnders, shouted “yes” before breaking down in tears.
Braithwaite, now 20, Kika, 19, and Alleyne, 18, showed no emotion as the verdicts were read out.
They had chased Ben down an Islington street after a night out in North London on June 29. The schoolboy had been out with friends, celebrating the end of his GCSE exams.
He was cornered between two cars, kicked to the ground and stabbed. The wound to his heart was delivered with such ferocity that it split his rib. He shouted: “I’ve not done anything wrong.”
The murder was the culmination of a row at Shillibeers Bar in which Braithwaite and two of his friends felt they were “disrespected” by another group of youths. A friend of Ben’s was confronted by Braithwaite and his friend Osman Ozdemir. Braithwaite was seen to gesture as if he were carrying a knife and said: “What are you looking at?”. He threatened to “open up” anyone who crossed him.
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A fight began and 30 youths spilt on to the streets. Osman Ozdemir suffered a cut when a broken beer bottle was thrown at him. He went to hospital, but Braithwaite telephoned Kika and Alleyne to call in support for a revenge attack.
They chased after some of the group, eventually finding Ben, who was walking home alone to avoid trouble. Stabbed, he staggered to his friends and collapsed in the arms of his friend Louis, who is the son of the actress Linda Robson.
Alleyne and Kika were arrested at a relative’s house. Their clothing had traces of Ben’s blood. Braithwaite later turned himself in to police after learning that the crime syndicate known as the Adams family wanted to punish him for committing a crime on their “turf”.
After denying any involvement the trio began blaming each other when they learnt that police had recorded their conversations about the attack.
Alleyne, a heavy cannabis user, and Kika had also boasted of the killing to a girl, who cannot be named. Alleyne wrote her a letter threatening revenge because she had gone to police.
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Under the heading “Freedom’s a Must”, he said: “You don’t know how I move on the road. I’m a boss. People in the North no \ who I am. F*** that. When the sh*t hits the fan, you snitch. I’m a real nigga and you ask your dad about me, he’s seen things. You all best hope I don’t bust case because people will be in trouble and you will never snitch on anyone again, I promise you that.”
Alleyne had served half of an 18-month sentence at a young offender institution for selling drugs.
He had been released under the supervision of a youth offending team. Although he was the subject of a curfew and electronic tag for part of his release, those measures were lifted by the time of the murder.
A review into how the Youth Offending Team handled his case has been started. Islington council said that Alleyne was required to attend weekly sessions with the team, and “his previous offences did not at any time suggest he was capable of a crime of this nature.”
His criminal career began at the age of 15 when he was convicted of the robbery of a mobile phone.
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Braithwaite had had a community order for an attempted robbery in 2007.
Kika was on the run for stabbing a man in the chest after a drugs row.
Kika and Alleyne, both from the Islington area, and Braithwaite from Bow, will be sentenced today.
In an impact statement read to court, Mrs Kinsella told of her family’s anguish at the murder of a “fun-loving boy with a heart of gold”. She said it was a tragedy that Ben never learnt of his wonderful exam results: he had achieved A grades in all his subjects.
“We had brought Ben up to always walk away from trouble. This sadly cost him his life,” she told the judge. “He walked away to get safely home and they took advantage of that — he was one boy on his own.”
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Outside court, 30 friends applauded the family. Miss Kinsella, who had appealed to youngsters to come forward and help police, said: “I am overjoyed. It’s awful, awful, but we got all we needed — it’s justice.”
Mr Kinsella said that knife crime was now “embedded in the heart of Great Britain”. He asked: “How many families like ours will have to stand outside the Old Bailey to get justice?”
That point was illustrated after it emerged that Ben had written a GCSE essay in his creative writing course about how it would feel if he was stabbed to death.