STEELE: LIFE SENTENCE FOR CIGARETTE STABBER

A teenager who stabbed a builder to death in the street after a ‘senseless’ row over a cigarette has been jailed for life today (Weds).

Kai Steele was just about to turn 18 when he plunged a knife twice into the chest of 26 year-old Alex Scott outside an off-licence in south London.

The fight started after Steele and his friend Dillon Beckford, 18, refused to give a cigarette to one of Alex Scott’s group.

Mr Scott, who worked for construction firm Balfour Beatty, was stabbed 20 seconds after he threw the first punch at Steele and bled to death from a fatal wound to the heart.

Judge Timothy Pontius slammed the culture of teenage knife violence on London’s streets as he ordered Steele to serve a minimum of 18 years behind bars.

He said the confrontation would have ended with just fists being thrown but for Steele’s decision to take a kitchen knife out with him.

‘This is yet another example of utterly needless and unjustified waste of human life resulting from a senseless decision by a teenage boy to put a knife in his pocket before leaving home,’ the judge said.

‘As so often the case, that knife was not taken out with the intention in the defendant’s mind to use it to cause serious injury, still less to kill.

‘His purpose in putting the knife in his pocket was for more general – just to have it ready for use as a weapon should he find himself in a situation which might turn violent.

‘Plainly he did not want to go out unarmed and therefore unprepared.’

The judge said Steele had admitted during the trial to carrying a knife with him in the past, and said he was convinced Steele had intended to kill Mr Scott when he stabbed him.

‘The murder was neither planned nor premeditated, but arose as so often in the context of street violence, in a matter of moments’, he added.  

‘That fact makes it all the more tragic, that human life was lost because a knife was needlessly carried.  

‘What would have begun and ended with trading a few punches instead led to a murder.’

Steele was convicted by an Old Bailey jury yesterday, who rejected his claim to have stabbed Mr Scott in self-defence.

The judge said Mr Scott was ‘not completely blameless’ in the confrontation, but added: ‘The use of a knife can never be described as a reasonable defensive response to a punch’.

Steele, who turned 18 a month after the attack, has a series of previous convictions dating back to 2009 including a knifepoint robbery in 2012 and grievous bodily harm in 2013.

After the verdict, prosecutor Simon Denison QC read from an impact statement by Mr Scott’s mother Rachel Van Dyke.

Ms Van Dyke said: ‘Since Alex’s death I don’t go out any more. I cannot believe I am never going to be able to kiss or cuddle Alex again.

‘His death was totally unnecessary and I know that nothing is ever going to bring Alex back.

‘Nothing can ever replace Alex. He was funny and outgoing. He had a good heart and would do anything for anybody.’

The Old Bailey heard Mr Scott had spent the evening of 10 August last year with friends at a betting shop in Lee, south London.

At around 9.30pm they were standing outside the off licence in Eltham Road when Steele and Beckford rode up on their bicycles.

One of Alex Scott’s group asked the teenagers for a cigarette but were turned down ‘with attitude’.

‘Words were needlessly exchanged,’ said the prosecutor. ‘It turned into an argument. The argument turned into a fight.’

CCTV cameras captured Beckford and Steele moving to an alleyway, followed by Mr Scott.

Mr Denison said: ‘Alex Scott played his part by being confrontational and he appears to have thrown the first punch – but there was absolutely no need or justification for what happened next.

‘Kai Steele took out a knife that he had in his pocket and he lunged at Alex Scott twice. He stabbed him twice in the left side of the chest – either blow could have killed him.’

Mr Scott collapsed on the pavement while the two youths cycled away and bled to death from the wounds to his heart.

Mr Denison said: ‘His death was as sudden as it was violent and wholly unnecessary, another life taken away on the streets for no reason.’

Beckford, of Lee High Road, Lee, southeast London, was also accused of murder on the basis of joint enterprise but was acquitted half-way through the trial.

Steele, of Lamport Close, Woolwich, denied murder but was convicted by the jury unanimously.

He will serve at least 18 years in prison before being considered for release, and will spend the rest of his life on licence.