ODEGBUNE: MASS BRAWL IN THE DOCK AS TEENAGER CONVICTED OF ‘RAILWAY CHILDREN’ MURDER
A teenager was convicted of murdering a schoolboy at Victoria station as chaos broke out at the Old Bailey.
Samson Odegbune, 18, wielded a samurai-sword as part of a gang of 20 armed youths who ‘hunted down’ 15-year-old Sofyen Belamouadden in a pre-arranged fight which had been organised on Facebook.
Sofyen was chased in to the station and surrounded in the ticket hall of the Tube station during the early evening rush hour.
He was stabbed at least nine times and suffered fatal wounds to his heart and right lung, on March 25 last year.
Within seconds of the jury convicting Odegbune of murder and conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm after a 10-week trial, the public gallery erupted as his supporters screamed and shouted in disgust.
Mayhem broke out in the dock among the seven defendants and prison guards, forcing Judge Christopher Moss QC to clear the court.
The screams and shouting could be heard throughout the building and detectives working in other courts rushed to the aid of City of London police as officers struggled to control the shrieking crowd in the public gallery.
One female security guard appeared to have been hurt in the melee, which lasted for around two minutes.
Police reinforcements were summoned to keep watch outside court after the defendants’ families were ejected from the building.
The case was adjourned for 30 minutes while order was restored. The jury, six women and six men, looked visibly shocked when they returned to the court.
The judge, who ordered the public gallery remain closed, said: ‘I am extremely sorry you witnessed such scenes. It happens sometimes, feelings run high.’
At the conclusion of the case he ruled that they be exempt from serving as jurors again.
He said they had given ‘sterling service’, before adding: ‘I am sorry it ended in the way that it did.
‘In light of what occurred this afternoon in particular, you shouldn’t have to experience that, I am going to exempt you from jury service for life.’
Judge Moss had ordered the defendants be brought in to the dock one by one for the remaining verdicts.
Each of them was surrounded by five prison guards.
Once order was restored Chris Goncalves, 18, was cleared of murder, manslaughter and conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm. But he may face a retrial on a single charge of violent disorder as the jury failed to reach a verdict.
Five others Jason Nwogbe, Tayo Ajayi, and Faruq Adeniji, all 18, and a 17 year-old and a 16-year-old who cannot be named for legal reasons were cleared of murder last month on the directions of the judge.
The 16-year-old was convicted of the conspiracy and violent disorder and will be sentenced on a date to be set.
Adeniji and Nwogbe were cleared of all charges.
Ajayi faces a retrial after the jury failed to reach verdicts in his case. The 17-year-old defendant was cleared of conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm, but may face a retrial for violent disorder.
The seven youths were the second group of a total of 20 to face trial over Sofyen’s death.
At the first trial which ended in May Obi Nwokeh, 18, and a 17-year-old, who cannot be named, convicted of murder.
Three others, Samuel Roberts, Adonis Akrah and a second 17-year-old, were convicted of manslaughter.
A sixth teenager, Enoch Amoah, 18, was cleared of both murder and manslaughter, but convicted of conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm and violent disorder.
A further trial of at least six youths, including the only female defendant Victoria Osoteku, 19, is due to begin on September 12.
The court heard the murder was the result of ‘simmering tensions’ between pupils at a sixth form college in Ladbroke Grove, west London and teenagers from Henry Compton School and the surrounding area.
His attackers used a £3.99 five-piece knife set bought from Argos, batons, iron bars and a Samurai sword in an act of ‘indescribable aggression’ the Old Bailey heard.
Sofyen, a year 10 student at Henry Compton School in Fulham, and a talented footballer, was rushed to St Thomas’s hospital but he could not be saved.
The ferocious attack was captured on CCTV inside the station and showed the teenager being knocked to the floor and set-upon.
The attacking group, many of whom wore a single glove on their left hand to identify themselves, thought of the station as their territory. They passed through it on their way to school from their homes in south London each day.
On the previous day, March 24, the two groups of rival teens were seen arguing at the station and one youth, to be tried for Sofyen’s murder later in the year, was left with a bloody nose.
It acted as the ‘direct catalyst’ for the pre-arranged meeting which led to Sofyen’s death.
The argument, which was thought to be over a girl, had arisen before at a ‘rave’ the previous Christmas.
One of the 17-year-olds, who was just 16 at the time, used social networking site Facebook to recruit ‘troops and weapons’.
He repeatedly asked online friends for a ‘flick-up ting’ and later asked an older friend to ‘buy some nanks (corr) from Argos’, referring to a box set of kitchen knives.
In four separate conversations between 7pm and 10pm, the youth asked: ‘Do you have a flick out nank (knife)?’
He told his friends there was a ‘beef’ with other youths in west London and someone could get ‘slumped’ (stabbed).
The messages were found on a laptop seized from the teenager’s home by police, after his arrest.
Others, who also communicated by texts, talked about the ‘madness’ that was going to take place the next day.
They arrived at Victoria on two number 52 buses about 5.14pm.
The rival west London group, including Sofyen, has pulled in two minutes earlier on a 148 bus.
Witnesses said the attacking group had a ‘pack mentality, a collective sense of common purpose, as though they were a team’ and used an ‘indescribable’ level of aggression.
Odegbune was seen wielding ‘Japanese-style sword’ with a blade up to 30cm long. He had bragged on Facebook the previous night: “I will bring my samurai”.
He led a ‘running charge’ at their rivals. As he started to move witnesses heard him threaten: “I’m going to f*** you up”.’
Prosecutor Mark Heywood QC said: ‘So brazen and confident were his killers they openly carried the various weapons they used with them as they ran towards him and hunted him down.
‘Such was their arrogance that they carried out that kind of attack in heart of the capital city and public place, the terminus of the station at the height of rush hour and in the sight of scores, if not hundreds of people passing by going to their own homes.’
Witness John Jackson, said he saw one of the attackers pulling a sword from his trousers.
Mr Jackson told jurors: ‘He ran, stopped, then produced a sword. He kind of challenged him and shouted “I’m going to f*** you up”.
‘Then he started running towards him [the victim].’
Odegbune did not attack Sofyen but instead led others who chased the victim’s friends away from the station.
Commuter Nuno Filipe Estevao, who was in the ticket hall, said: ‘When I saw the boy falling down I saw him being struck while he was trying to get up.
‘They surrounded him and kicked him and punched him, a whole crowd of people. I couldn’t see much of him, they were all surrounding him.
‘It was everyone throwing themselves at this person.’
Following the attack 12 of the 20 suspects boarded a C10 bus and appeared ‘hyper’ and ‘pumped up’ to other passengers.
One of them was overheard telling a friend: ‘Didn’t you see me run in to the station and shank him?’
Police officers stopped the bus and found a selection of knives as well as blade-sharpening steels and a schoolbag.
Before officers boarded, one of the youths ordered a young mum to take hold of a knife, which was covered in a cardboard sheath.
She later took the weapon home, cleaned it and disposed of it but police were able to recover it after she reported the incident.
Sofyen’s blood was found on at least three of the recovered knives and one of the sharpening steels.
Nwogbe, of Oppenheim Road, Blackheath; Goncalves, of Island Road, Bermondsey; Ajayi, of Mayhew Court, Denmark Hill Estate; Adeniji, Odegbune and the two 16 year-olds, all from south London, denied conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm and violent disorder.
Odegbune and Goncalves also denied murder.
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