Teenager jailed for life for stabbing to death stranger who bumped into him at bus stop

Timothy Smith, 38, had stepped back to read the electronic timetable.

In doing so, he blocked the path of Rickell Patterson, then 16, who was cycling along the crowded pavement on his BMX bike.

Enraged, Patterson pulled out a kitchen knife and plunged it into Mr Smith's chest before riding off, leaving him bleeding to death in front of dozens of onlookers.

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The 3inch blade punctured a lung and vein. Mr Smith, a freelance journalist, died later that day in hospital.

At Nottingham Crown Court yesterday, Patterson, now 17, was sentenced to life and ordered to serve a minimum of 14 years in jail after being convicted of murder.

Last night Mr Smith's family called for tougher sentencing for knife crime.

His brother Chris, 42, said: "Every time I look at a knife, a small knife, an ordinary knife, I wonder was it like this?

"It haunts me. He was touched by pure evil that day and we are the ones serving the life sentence.

"This is the reality of knife crime, this poison, what it leaves behind and destroys.

"Where is the real deterrent, the penalty for carrying knives?"

The jury heard that Mr Smith was waiting at the bus stop in Nottingham after visiting a library on the evening of May 1.

After the collision with the bike, a scuffle broke out and Patterson told him: 'You got in the line of fire', then pulled the knife.

Frances Oldham QC, prosecuting, said Mr Smith "appeared not to understand what he was supposed to have done" when Patterson confronted him.

Patterson, a part-time computer student, slapped Mr Smith around the face, knocking his sunglasses off, before stabbing him once.

Patterson, of St Ann's, Nottingham, later threw the knife away and burned his blood- stained clothes.

But the next day, he handed himself into police.

He said he acted in self-defence after Mr Smith "went crazy".

He also claimed he carried the knife to defend himself against youths from rival estates in the city.

Sentencing, Mr Justice Teare told Patterson: "Nothing he did justified any action from you, let alone his death.

"This was a senseless and unprovoked act on an innocent and unsuspecting member of the public."