Nigerian man, 21, gets life for stabbing to death promising A-level student who came to England for a better future

Chester Dauda, 21, stabbed 17-year-old Stephen Boachie in the heart shortly after he had left a New Year's Eve Party last year.

Today the victim's father Kwasi Boachie, made a heartfelt plea to end the 'craze of knife carrying gangs.'

Murdered: Promising A-level student Stephen Boachie was stabbed to death on a garage forecourt. Today his killer was jailed for life

Promising A-level student Stephen was the first of 27 teenagers to be killed in the capital in 2007.  

The Ghanaian who was studying for his A-levels at Newham Sixth Form College, collapsed in a pool of blood on the forecourt of a petrol station outside a pub where he had been celebrating.

Stephen, who was known as Kofi, arrived in the UK six years ago and was hoping to study to become an engineer at Birmingham University.

CCTV film shown in court showed him happily chatting with girls inside the pub just before his death.

The row erupted after Stephen spoke to a girl Dauda had been out with that night.

Nigerian Dauda collected a blade from a friend's car and stabbed Stephen twice before being dragged into a waiting car by friends.

Dauda, nicknamed KB, was convicted of murder by a jury at the Old Bailey and was recommended for deportation.

Today he was jailed for life and ordered to serve a minimum term of 14 years.

Stephen's father Kwasi Boachie, 51, said in an emotional statement: 'It is hard to accept we brought Stephen over from Ghana to the UK to have a better education and prosperous future, but all that has been dashed by the act of a murderer in this craze of knife carrying gangs.

'How many more lives will have to be sacrifice before people would realise that killing never solved any human related problems.

'Stephen had his whole life ahead of him.' 

Plea: Stephen's father Kwasi Boachie has appealed for an end toknife crime

Mr Boachie paid tribute to his 'live wire, hardworking' son who was 'always ready to help, dedicated to his schoolwork, household chores and Christian activities'.

'Children are supposed to outlive their children. To have to bury your own son so young is unbearable,' he added.

Dauda clashed with Stephen on New Year's Day last year in the car park of the Thatched House pub in Ripple Road, Barking, east London.

The killer had been at the party with friends, but got talking to girls aged 14 and 17, who also knew Stephen, outside and eventually headed to a flat in Ilford where they continued drinking heavily.

He returned in his friend's BMW around 5am and CCTV caught him chatting and arguing with a friend at the entrance to the Thatched House.

Stephen who lived in nearby Maplestead Road, Barking, passed Dauda in the car park and could be seen speaking to one of the girls who had been with Dauda.

The killer then headed in the same direction and cameras from the neighbouring Shell petrol station showed two figures grappling before the dispute continued off camera.  

Prosecutor Mark Ellison QC said: 'There was initially a bit of a scuffle between them, but no more than that.

'Clearly angered by what had happened the defendant went back to a car he had been in which was parked just over the other side and returned to Stephen Boachie and stabbed him twice in the upper body. He was pulled off him by others.' 

Witnesses saw him clutching a knife in his hand and then a 'silver flash' as he plunged it in to the teenager's chest.

Surgeons from the Helicopter Emergency Service performing open heart surgery at the scene to try and close a hole in the right ventricle but he was declared dead at 10.55pm on January 1.

A second stab wound had sliced through his left kidney.

Stephen lived with his father Kwasi and stepmother Sandra Bonne, 45, while his two teenage brothers are still in Ghana.

His mother, Isebella Akumiah, lives in Wood Green, North London.

She said: 'I always think of Kofi, how proud I was of him. He was an intelligent young man.

'I find it heartbreaking to tell people Kofi is no longer here.' 

Dauda, who arrived in the UK from Nigeria in 2004 with his parents, was picked out as the knifeman in a video ID parade.

He was arrested five weeks after the stabbing and told police he knew nothing about the incident.

He later changed his story and said he had been to the pub with friends and met a girl who he had taken back to a flat in Ilford.

He told officers a boy tried to steal from his pockets when he returned to the pub and he 'pushed him back and punched him' before leaving the scene.

Jailing him, Judge Martin Stephens QC said: 'This was a deliberate act of outrageous violence committed on a defenceless victim, but 17 at the time.

'Whatever he may have done or said to you earlier there cannot be the slightest excuse for what you did.

'You walked off deliberately to the car, got hold of a knife and you used it twice to vulnerable parts of the victim's body and plunged it in to his heart.

'I'm perfectly satisfied you had an intention to kill.' 

Dauda, of Hollybush Street, Plaistow, east London, denied murder. He did not have any previous convictions.