A teenager has been found guilty of killing a 15-year-old boy in east London after he confessed to a girl online while she was in Nando’s.
The 16-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was found guilty of manslaughter at the Old Bailey on Friday.
He had chased and stabbed former friend Pharrell Garcia once in the heart with a multi-tool pocketknife in Stellman Close, Hackney, on 23 July last year.
After Pharrell collapsed in the street, the killer fled and threw away the knife, the court heard. Members of the public and paramedics had tried to save the 15-year-old, but he died at the scene.
The teenager then told a girl he knew online that he killed Pharrell by “accident”.
‘I think I just killed Pharrell’
The court heard that on the day of the killing, the teenager called her and said: “I’m fighting Pharrell today.”
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She tried to dissuade him but later that day she said she received a call while she was in Nando’s.
She told police: “I’m at Nando’s with my nan and then [the teenager] calls me and he’s like ‘I think I just killed Pharrell'”.
“I was like ‘don’t lie’ because I didn’t believe it,” she added. “Like I was pretty shocked…
“He was like ‘I think I just killed Pharrell. I stabbed him in the heart by accident, but I was meant to stab his leg’.”
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The Metropolitan Police arrested the killer at a family friend’s house early on 24 July. Analysing his mobile phone, officers found 43 videos and photos of the teenager playing with knives from a week before the stabbing.
He had also messaged his mother after the attack to say he could not go home, to remove certain items from their home, and to ask if he could go to Portugal.
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The teenager admitted stabbing the 15-year-old but claimed it was in self-defence after getting the knife off him – a claim detectives and the jury disputed.
In a prepared statement he gave to police after his arrest, the teenager said Pharrell “approached me on Tuesday and told me, again, he had a problem with me. He pulled a knife out of his sock and went to attack me”.
“I was scared for my life and acted instinctively to defend myself.”
The jury found the teenager not guilty of murder. Judge Philip Katz KC remanded him into custody ahead of sentencing on 17 April.
