Teenager jailed for stabbing friend during alcohol and cannabis binge

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Victim: 16-year-old Grant Douglass was stabbed to death.

A 15-year-old schoolboy was jailed for life yesterday for stabbing his teenage friend through the heart with a kitchen knife while high on drink and cannabis.

Luke Rychter was said to have a "fascination" with knives, and it was this obsession which triggered the unprovoked attack on Grant Douglass, 16.

The teenagers were among a group of friends who spent the evening drinking together and Rychter was described as being "in a mood" and argumentative.

He plunged a knife with a 20cm blade he was using to make a cheese sandwich into Douglass's chest and then ran off leaving him for dead.

Earlier he had slashed another youth across the stomach, causing superficial injuries, Leeds Crown Court was told.

Douglass was pronounced dead on arrival at hospital.

Rychter, now 16, claimed the stabbing was an "accident", but was convicted of murder by a jury. Today he was told he would serve a minimum of 12 years before being eligible for parole.

Judge James Stewart, QC, told him: "The evidence given at the trial was that you had a fascination for knives. The defence you raised at your trial was that it was an accident. That defence the jury roundly rejected.

"You were the worse for drink and under the influence of cannabis at the time. I am satisfied that had you been sober, this incident would never had happened.

"However, you and your young group habitually drank to excess and smoked cannabis to excess. It is my opinion that you thought up this defence of accident after leaving your friend lying on the floor dying and returned home."

On the night of the fatal stabbing the teenagers had ended up at the home of Rychter's sister Gemma Baldwin, in Halifax, West Yorks, where his brother was babysitting for her and her partner's four children.

Patrick Palmer, prosecuting, said Rychter had become increasingly aggressive towards Douglass over matters which would have seemed trivial in the cold light of day.

Another friend Daniel O'Connell, 18, told the court how he was slashed just moments before Grant was targeted. He said Rychter was in a mood and kept asking for a share of a cigarette he was smoking.

Rychter approached him with an "evil look" on his face and slashed him across the stomach, causing a scratch.

Later O'Connell said he heard "loads of banging and shouting" from another room and the comment "what have you done, what have you done."

He said: "As I walked in Grant approached me and his T-shirt was covered in blood."

Mr Palmer said the teenager did not realise he had been stabbed because he was laughing, but moments later he collapsed outside.

Rychter claimed he had picked up the knife from the sink and was turning to go to the fridge for some cheese when his friend came stumbling towards him and he caught him in the chest.

But another friend said Rychter had used the knife he was making a sandwich and stabbed Douglass in the chest "like in the movies."

Nine months earlier Rychter had targeted O'Connell and his girlfriend when he had held a knife to their throats after waving it around during a drinking session.

Louise Blackwell QC, defending, asked Judge Stewart to consider Rychter's "extreme youth" and said his emotional maturity was so low that he didn't fully understand the consequences of his actions.

Outside court O'Connell described Rychter as "a bit of a weirdo" who would follow Douglass around. The two teenages went to the local high school together.

The 16-year-old victim lived with his widowed mother and was preparing to start work as an apprentice plasterer when he was murdered in February.

The victim's sister Dawn Douglass said after the hearing: "This is a tragedy that should never have happened. Our Grant is gone forever and nothing will change that. He was a well-loved son, brother, uncle, nephew and friend of many. He will forever be in our thoughts."

 

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