Teenager jailed for life over deadly schoolboy fight

A teenager has been given a life sentence for fatally stabbing rival teen Leroy James in a school playground fight in 2001...

12:14 22 September 2012

Mustafa Gurpinar, 15, has been given a life sentence for murdering 14-year-old Leroy James in Ponders End school playground in Enfield, north London, during a fight in August 2011.

 

The boy's murder was videoed on a mobile phone and later used in evidence during the trial at the Old Bailey.

 

The fight was created as an 'event' on social network site Facebook. Leroy James requested that a girl record it on his phone but when he got the upper-hand in the fight, Gurpinar pulled out a knife and stabbed James in the chest, puncturing his heart. 

 

Duncan Penny, prosecuting, said: "Whilst he remained on his feet for a few more seconds, soon he fell and his lifeblood ebbed away.

 

"To those who were watching, what was expected to be a fist fight transpired to be anything but."

 

Convicted of murder by a 10-2 majority, Gurpinar was ordered to be detained for a minimum of 13 years. The youth was also convicted of possessing an offensive weapon.  

 

Sentencing Gurpinar, who was 14 at the time of the killing, Judge John Bevan said: "You have an extreme interest in knives. You took the knife to the park.

 

"You showed a singular lack of restraint. You knew if he was going to fight, you would win."

 

The trial heard that the killer had affectionate names for his weapons, referring to his "pet" knife as his "alligator" and he talked of upgrading to a "crocodile" machete. 

 

Following the sentence Sarah Counsell, from the Crown Prosecution Service was quoted by the BBC as concluding: "The prosecution case was that he had brought the knife to the scene with the intention of using it, demonstrating that he was therefore guilty of murder.

 

"There was evidence before the court of many Facebook conversations the defendant had with others where he had threatened the victim and his friends and saying that he would fight them using his 'pet' knife.

 

"This case shows the misery that knife crime causes."