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Boy 'stabbed by paranoid cannabis user'
Paul Cheston, Courts Correspondent17.03.09
A teenager was stabbed to death in daylight by a stranger turned paranoid by his cannabis addiction, a court heard today.
Imran Khan, 20, knifed 17-year-old Devoe Roach through the heart less than a minute after "facing each other down" in the street, the Old Bailey was told.
Mr Roach, who was out with a friend, asked Khan "what you looking at?" before the fatal blow.
The two men scuffled in the street in Stamford Hill on 23 March last year. Devoe died from a single knife wound to the chest, which pierced his heart. Khan slipped the blade into his tracksuit bottoms and fled as horrified passers-by looked on, the court was told.
He was arrested six days later. The knife has never been found.
The Old Bailey heard he had developed paranoid psychosis, "aggravated by the long-term consumption of skunk cannabis".
Michael Holland QC, prosecuting, told jurors they would have to decide whether Khan's condition had impaired his responsibility.
Khan, of Stamford Hill, denies murder. The trial continues.
