Pair found guilty over killing teen

Odwayne Barnes was stabbed through the heart outside a college in Birmingham city centre on March 7, and died three days later in hospital.

Nathaniel Darby, 20, and Michel Hayles, 17, were found guilty of the 16-year-old's manslaughter by a jury at Birmingham Crown Court.

An 18-year-old, Damien Belle, of Heathway, Shard End, Birmingham, pleaded guilty to Odwayne's murder at the beginning of the trial.

Robert Juckes QC, prosecuting, said Odwayne was killed because he had fallen out with Hayles, who was a member of a rival street gang.

The court heard that, during police interviews, Hayles claimed to be a member of a gang called the Slash Crew or Slash For Money Crew, and said he had fallen out with Odwayne, who was a member of the rival Bang Bang Crew.

On the afternoon of the attack, Odwayne and a friend, Leon Black, had bumped into the defendants by chance in New Street, in Birmingham city centre, and fled in terror as soon as they recognised them.

Odwayne evaded his pursuers and reached a bus stop in Jennens Road, outside the Matthew Boulton College. Mr Juckes said Odwayne's attackers pulled up at the bus stop in Darby's Volkswagen Polo before dragging him into the busy main road and setting about him, stabbing him twice.

Despite suffering "catastrophic" injuries to his heart, the teenager managed to flee the scene on foot before collapsing some distance away.

The defendants, all dressed in black from head to toe, sobbed and hugged one another as the jury returned the guilty verdicts. Family members wept in the public gallery, with Darby's mother crying out: "They didn't do nothing, they were trying to help him."