CAMPOVERDE: PAIR JAILED FOR ‘BORIS BIKE’ KILLING

Two South Americans who pulled a footballer from a ‘Boris bike’ and beat him to death were jailed for a total of more than 13 years today (Fri).

Angel Campoverde, 22, and Galo Vargas-Bemudez, 23, attacked Erik Rosero outside the La Pollero Colora salsa club near London Bridge.

The 22 year-old suffered a fractured skull and fatal brain injuries after he was kicked, punched and had his head smashed into the pavement.

Following the assault Campoverde was overheard in a nearby cab office bragging: ‘Tell Erik Angel did it, remember my face.’

Mr Rosero had been involved in a furious row over a girl with a group of men inside the club in the early hours of December 5 last year.

He was then pursued out of the club and confronted on the street. He was subjected to a prolonged beating lasting several minutes, although many of the blows were ‘ineffectual’ because the attackers were so drunk.

Both men, from Ecuador, were cleared of murder, but unanimously convicted of manslaughter following a two-week trial at the Old Bailey.

Campoverde, who had provoked his victim with a ‘teeth-sucking’ gesture, was jailed for seven and-a-half years.

Vargas-Bermudez was jailed for five years and eight months. The judge said he had gone ‘steaming in to the victim’.

However his barrister Michael Wolkind QC described the verdict against him as ‘shocking’ and an appeal would be lodged immediately.

Jailing the two men, Judge John Bevan QC said there had been a ‘total relinquishing of self control’.

‘Something happened, possibly Erik Rosero’s fault, in La Pollero which caused you Campoverde to either have your own pride dented or your pride on behalf of someone else in your group and you went out looking to punish Erik or his group.

‘The attack involved punching and then when he was down kicking and stamping all be it, bearing in mind the evidence of the pathologist, ineffectually because otherwise the injuries would have been more severe.

‘Ineffectual because you were drunk, but the intent was there and it was prolonged.’

He said neither man had owned up to what they had done or shown any remorse.

The court heard Mr Rosero’s organs had been donated following his death had ‘assisted in saving the lives of others’.

But the judge told his killers: ‘It is scant consolation to the grieving mother of Erik Rosero, whose life you needlessly took.

‘No sentence I pass can begin to mitigate the despair and loss that any parent must feel in these circumstances.’

Mr Rosero, also from Ecuador, had spent the day playing in a football tournament for his team Aucas in Holloway, north London, before going clubbing with friends in the London Bridge area.

After arguing inside the venue later that evening, a mass brawl involving around 20 men spilled out on to the street at around 4.30am.

‘It appears that there was an argument between him and someone else in the club, over a girl,’ said Mr Philip Bennetts, prosecuting.

‘It was over very quickly.

‘In a very short time after leaving the club Mr Rosero was attacked.

‘There is a stark contrast between as you will hear, the account of him pedaling around on a Barclays bike, preparing to make his way home, apparently in good humour, and the vicious nature of the attack that he suffered moments later.’

John Rooney, a witness, said in a statement that Mr Rosero ‘was taking a lot of punishment’.

‘They were really punching him hard in the face,’ he said.

‘He was bouncing all over the place, they were hitting him from every direction – one was at the back hitting him and one was at the side hitting him.

‘They were savagely beating him, and he was dodging and waving, but they knocked him to the ground.

‘I could see several people kicking him – some were stamping on him and some were stamping on his head.

‘It was extremely violent.’

Paramedics found the battered victim lying unconscious in the street before rushing him to the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, east London.

He was pronounced dead at 5.38am on December 6 – barely 24 hours later.

A post-mortem examination recorded the cause of death as blunt force trauma to the head.

A bloodstain matching Mr Rosero’s DNA profile was found on one of Campoverde’s trainers, while his own blood was found at the scene.

The court heard he was convicted of causing actual bodily harm as a 15 year-old for taking part in a gang attack on a pupil at Holloway School in north London.

Vargas-Bemudez claimed he threw a single punch ‘in self-defence’ and but did not take part in the main brawl that led to Mr Rosero’s death.

Mr Wolkind attacked the jury for convicting his client on the account of a single ‘unreliable’ witness and said: ‘There has been a terrible miscarriage of justice.

‘He is about to go to prison on a thoroughly unsafe verdict.’

Campoverde, of Bruce House, Headlam House, Clapham, southwest London; and Vargas-Bemudez, of Walpole Road, Tottenham, north London; denied murder but were convicted of manslaughter.

ends