25 years for killing model rival
A Louis Vuitton model who stabbed a famous rival to death after becoming obsessively jealous of his success was jailed for at least 25 years today.
The confrontation which led to Harry’s death
George Koh, 24, copied Harry Uzoka’s ‘look,’ his Instagram feed and even boasted about having slept with his girlfriend, fellow catwalk starlet Ruby Campbell.
Koh, who ‘wanted to be as famous as Mr Uzoka’, had been branded a ‘fake’ and was warned by Mr Uzoka to stop aping him in heated social media exchanges.
The victim was described in court as ‘the country’s most famous black model’ who had won contracts with Mercedes and Levi’s and counted catwalk star Jordan Dunn among his friends.
Prosecutor Richard Horwell QC said Koh ‘plainly had an obsession with Harry Uzoka’.
He said that ‘whatever was going on in Koh’s mind was festering into an unhealthy and toxic mix’.
Harry arranged a confrontation to settle the row with Koh ‘face to face’ in Shepherd’s Bush on 11 January this year.
Mr Uzoka, 25, recruited his flatmate, Adrian Harper, as back-up and the pair made their way around the corner to Ollgar Close each armed with a dumbbell bar.
But Koh was waiting with a knife in each hand flanked by ‘big, burly, strong’ pals Merse Dikanda, wielding a ‘terrifying’ machete, and personal trainer Jonathan Okigbo, both also 24.
Mr Harper managed to run away but Harry was quickly cornered around a parked red VW Polo and knifed in the heart by Koh as a little girl stood yards away waving up to her family’s balcony.
He collapsed outside his home and died on the pavement despite the best efforts of the emergency services following the two-minute confrontation.
Koh and Dikanda were both found guilty of murder last month following a four-week trial.
The model had earlier admitted possessing two knives on the day of the attack whilst Dikanda was convicted of two similar offences.
Today (fri) they were jailed for life and ordered to serve at least 22 years behind bars before being considered for release.
Okigbo was cleared of murder but found guilty of manslaughter and jailed for 14 years.
In a moving victim impact statement read to the court, Harry’s mother Josephine Jackson said: ‘Until Harry’s life was taken away from us we were a normal, happy family.
‘Harry was progressing well with his life and his career.
‘He was an inspiration to me and his brother, Edmond.
‘He brought so much joy and happiness to us and he meant the world to me.
‘His departure has left a gaping hole, a void and a crack in our family that we are still finding difficult to contend with.’
She described how the star would help her with household chores and support his family financially by helping to pay the mortgage and foot the bill for holidays abroad.
‘He was the most generous person you could meet,’ Ms Jackson added.
‘He was due to start acting in a couple of movies, but that chance has been taken away from him.’
She added: ‘Harry, your short life enriched the lives of so many.
‘You inspired so many people and touched them with your love.
‘You will never be forgotten, my wonderful boy.’
Mr Horwell earlier told the court: ‘Harry Uzoka was a well-known and successful model with a very bright future ahead of him and his celebrity status is relevant because it is that very part of his life that brought him into contact with the first defendant, George Koh.’
The pair first crossed paths at an Agi & Sam fashion show in 2015 where Harry gave a group of younger models, including Koh, tips on things like how to walk properly.
After meeting again at an Urban Outfitters shoot shortly after, Mr Uzoka agreed to look through Koh’s portfolio and recommended he should ‘go to a better agency’.
They followed each other on Instagram after parting company and occasionally bumped into each other in London or Paris.
Harry was signed to Premier Model Management at the time of his death and had appeared in campaigns for Everlane and GQ whilst Koh had previously been on the books at IMG Models.?
Koh described one incident during an Adidas booking when the photographer snapped a selfie of them together and sent it to Mr Uzoka, who replied: ‘Good luck for the shoot, but why is your Instagram copying my Instagram?’
Mr Horwell said Harry gradually became ‘annoyed’ that his ‘less successful’ lookalike was trying to mimic him and make contact with some of his friends through the social media site.
The row intensified when Paris-based model Annecetta Lafon arrived in London on 28 December last year.
Speaking from behind screens, Ms Lafon told jurors Koh ‘harassed’ her for sex after inviting her to stay at his place before quizzing her about other models she had met in London.
‘He said he used to be friends with Harry and he f**ked his ex-girlfriend,’ she said.
On 8 January, Ms Lafon went to stay with Harry, who she described as ‘a good friend’.
She said Mr Uzoka was ‘laughing’ when she relayed Koh’s claims before he told her ‘it was not the first time this happened’.
‘Then he showed me messages George had sent him apologising, saying he was a big fan of him, that he admired him, that he would never say bad stuff about him and that it was Harry who pushed him to do this kind of job,’ Ms Lafon added.
One of Harry’s best friends, fellow model Chuck Achike, labelled the slurs ‘petty and young’ and told jurors they both ‘knew it wasn’t true’.
The court heard Harry had recently landed a role in a British romcom and was ‘excited’ about the future.
‘We were talking about the role and talking about the opportunity,’ Mr Achike said when describing his visit to Harry’s flat the night before he died.
‘That was the mood – it was optimistic. We were talking about the future a lot.’
On January 11, Koh sent Mr Uzoka an Instagram message reading: ‘Where you? I’ll come there. We can fight. Bring your friends with you.’
Within 10 minutes Uzoka had responded, telling him to ‘come Shepherd’s Bush’.
Koh insisted he only recruited Dikanda and Okigbo because he was scared of being attacked by Harry and his friends and he had no intention of actually fighting.
He told jurors he used the word ‘out of bravado’ and did not even expect his rival to show up.
The killer claimed to have been walking the streets of London with two knives in his bag for days ‘just in case any of his mates saw me’ and moved them to his pockets as they neared Harry’s address.
When the groups faced off he told jurors he pleaded: ‘This is ridiculous – we could be brothers. This is over a girl.’
Koh continued: ‘He was like ‘I know you did it. You don’t need to bad-mouth people’.
‘He either thought I slept with his girlfriend, or I said it, and I was just trying to ensure him nothing was going on.
He told jurors he took the machete out to ‘scare’ Harry and Mr Harper away.
Koh sobbed in the witness box for more than a minute telling jurors: ‘All I was doing was defending myself. In the course of it I killed Harry and I’m sorry for that.’
But Mr Horwell rubbished Koh’s claims of self-defence and accused him of ‘pretending’ to wipe tears from his eyes.
Mr Horwell said: ‘Harry was well-liked, well respected, and you became a little obsessed with him, didn’t you?
‘You wanted to become Harry Uzoka. You wanted to be as famous as him.’
Defending Koh, Sean Larkin QC told the court a hefty pile of character references painted ‘the true picture of George Koh’: ‘A young man, after a troubled upbringing, who was placed on the at-risk register, and after that conviction and imprisonment he began to turn his life around in as much as he pursued his career in modelling.’
He was released from prison for drugs offences in 2013 and went to university but did not finish his course.
The court heard Koh was asked to leave the family home last summer following a bust up with his brother and attempted to commit suicide shortly after.
‘The episode last August when he tried to take his own life shows that at some point he was troubled, and those troubles were not resolved,’ Mr Larkin continued.
He agreed with the judge’s observation about Koh’s ‘obsessing, ruminating and inability to let go’ during the trial, but added: ‘He is not a violent man, going out getting into trouble on a regular basis, starting fights or anything like that.
‘Therefore, one has to ask the question; why did he become involved in this particular incident?
‘The reason was because of what Ms Lafon told Harry Uzoka.
‘Whether it was true or not, there can be no doubt that Harry Uzoka was concerned about it.’
Judge Wendy Joseph interjected: ‘I daresay Ms Campbell may have been extremely upset at the suggestion she was sleeping with someone she wasn’t, betraying her own boyfriend Harry.
‘All throughout the trial everyone kept saying how upset Harry was – what about her?’
Mr Larkin told the court that had Ms Lafon told Harry and Koh heard nothing about it ‘there would have been no meeting between them’.
He explained earlier how Koh ‘began to report suicidal ideations’ following his remand into custody in February.
‘He began to hear voices and he was prescribed anti-psychotic medication for a period of weeks,’ he added.
‘That, of course came to an end, and he is being kept under review.’
Dikanda has six previous convictions and was jailed for a total of seven years just after turning 18 for having a taser disguised as a telephone whilst dealing crack cocaine and heroin.
Okigbo has never before been behind bars despite racking up nine convictions, including four for robbery, three for drugs-related offences, having an offensive weapon and battery.
Koh, of York Way, Camden, northwest London, and Dikanda, of no fixed address, were jailed for life with a minimum term of 25 years and 22 years respectively.
Okigbo, of Trevithic House, York Rise, Camden, was jailed for 14 years.
Tarika Jayaratne, from the CPS, said: ‘These three men went to a fight armed with knives. They plainly intended to use them and did so, as a result of which Harry Uzoka lost his life.
‘The prosecution presented CCTV evidence that showed the victim being cornered and violently attacked.
‘This was a senseless murder over petty jealousy. Our thoughts are with the family and friends of Harry Uzoka and we hope that today’s sentencing brings them a sense that justice has been done.’
