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Girl, 16, murdered boyfriend by luring him into gang ambush
Paul Cheston, Courts Correspondent8 Jul 2009
A teenage girl was convicted at the Old Bailey today of murdering her boyfriend by luring him to his death.
The 16-year-old girl, who can be named for the first time as Samantha Joseph, was also dating the leader of the gang which ambushed Shakilus Townsend and left him fatally wounded and crying for his mother.
As six members of the gang were also found guilty of murder, Shakilus's mother issued a plea to other parents to help put an end to London's knife culture.
Shakilus, 16, was beaten with a baseball bat, kicked, punched and stabbed by the masked and hooded mob and left sobbing “I don't want to die” in a pool of blood in a cul-de-sac in Thornton Heath.
The gang known as SMN or “Shine My Nine”, was led by Danny McLean, 18.
One of the killers, Andre Johnson-Haynes, is a former pupil at £13,000-a-year Emanuel School in Battersea. The strapping six footer has also played rugby at Premiership team London Irish.
All the defendants face life sentences when they are sentenced in September by Judge Richard Hawkins.
Outside court Shakilus's mother, Nicola Dyer, who had sobbed as guilty verdicts were returned, said the onus fell not only on parents but on neighbours and society to halt the growth of gang culture. She said: “We need to get tough for the safety of our children. Do you want your child to have a future? Don't wait until tomorrow — tomorrow may be too late.”
She added: “I plead with parents, be vigilant and proactive in ensuring your children do not carry knives or associate with gangs. Obviously you cannot be with them every minute of the day. But first and foremost your children are your responsibility. We must not just consider ourselves to be parents of our own children but to all children.”
She went on: “Once someone starts carrying a knife no good can ever come from it. Harm will either come to them or someone else eventually.”
During the trial the jury heard how one knife lacerated Shakilus's liver in the “relentless and merciless attack”.
According to prosecutor Brian Altman QC, Joseph played “a central and pivotal role to lure Shakilus to be ambushed with little or no possibility of escape in a honey trap with a lethal and tragic twist”.
He added: “Shakilus had been seeing her for a matter of weeks but in doing so she was playing a dangerous game because she was cheating on McLean, who was also her boyfriend.
“It is clear that McLean had come to learn of her deception and, by way of recompense, she agreed to set up the hapless Shakilus.”
On the afternoon of the attack last July the couple caught a bus to Thornton Heath on the pretext of visiting Joseph's cousin.
Joseph was keeping in regular touch with the gang on her mobile phone and when they entered Beulah Crescent, a quiet cul-de-sac, he was set upon. “The attack was pre-arranged, planned and executed meticulously with consummate skill and cunning,” said Mr Altman.
“It was a senseless, premeditated murder and nobody deserves to die in the appalling way my son did.”
Joseph admitted setting up Shakilus to meet McLean but claimed she did not think he would be hurt. She told jurors: “It was the last thing I wanted.”
McLean admitted stabbing Shakilus but claimed his victim had pulled a knife. He was convicted unanimously.
The other gang members were found guilty by a 10-2 majority verdict. They were Tyrell Ellis, 19, and his brother Don-Carlos, 18, Johnson-Haynes, 19, Andre Thompson, 17, and Michael Akinfenwa, 17.
Judge Hawkins ruled the minors should be identified in the public interest.
Reader views (20)
this is happening in every city around UK, even on my road. there are gangs from different area and backgrounds linking up and making problems with others via entering other areas, facebooking. Birmingham is just like London, it is all getting worse. RIP shakilus
- Dimitrios Papagiorgios, Birmingham, UK, 05/01/2010 16:59
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It's really scary what's happenning across Europe. I feel fear when I go to London. Same thing is starting to happen here in Madrid, a place where we NEVER had this kind of problems, and now has many Latino gangs that have imported the knife-and-gun culture to our society.
But what surprises me the most is that feeling that "we can't do anything about it but to educate our children". I have to strongly disagree. I think it's time to get REALLY serious. To deport whole families. To jail teenagers for life.
I am very sad Madrid is following London steps, with the new "multicultural" youngsters showing no respect even to police. With the police hand-tied and unable to anything but to say these youngsters not to behave bad again.
Zero tolerance and iron fist. Let's get serious.
- Rod, madrid spain, 05/01/2010 15:59
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so, do we know if Sam and Danny got back together? it seems that they deserve each other.
- Ben Farrell, London, 05/01/2010 15:59
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If there is a case for bringing back the death penalty, the birch and corporal punishment in schools in order to get rid of this utterly pointless gang culure then this is it.
16 years old for goodness sake !
Well done Labour and your completely inadequate politically correct nonsense forced on youngsters in schools today. Pathetic !
- David, London UK, 05/01/2010 15:59
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Parents must start being parents. No use letting them chose their friends anymore. If you go back to the days when each child had to mind their manners do household chores look after siblings and report to mum and dad like they all should then family life may be a lot more happy.
Parents should check their children's bedrooms every day for drugs weapons and pornography they cannot trust to good luck any more.
If their children have a responsibility like a pet or wholesome hobby : no computer should be available unsupervised. Cell phones should only be available to dedicated lines eg parents and services.
The days of leaving children of any age home alone is asking for these types of tragic results.
Mums stay at home stop career building you have a career it is called family life.
Dads start giving your children a decent life instead of going off with a new woman/man.
Most of us know what is the correct and honest and ethical way to live : Then get a real life instead of ruining yours and others.
- More Knives And Trouble At Home, Cornwall, 05/01/2010 15:59
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Why does sentencing have to wait until September?
- Alan In Bow, London, 05/01/2010 15:59
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If you think knives are the wqorry, you should be worrying about the ease and nuber of guns that these kids can lkay there hands on..I worry that when all respect for authority goes..the Police will become legitamate targets as well and that will lead to ever more USA style Policing.
- Clif, London, 05/01/2010 15:59
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"..the Police will become legitamate targets as well and that will lead to ever more USA style Policing."
Sorry, I disagree. If you gave the Bobbies some hand guns, shotguns, and automatic weapons, they could stand a chance against criminals in the UK; all of the minorities would have some respect for the "coppers."
- John In The Usa, Near Spokane Washington USA, 05/01/2010 15:59
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don't be ridiclious David, it's not labours fault a kid stabbed another kid.
- Jc, london, 05/01/2010 15:59
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Would they have been found guilty of murder if there were still a death penalty?
- Sara, London, 05/01/2010 15:59
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lol i think David completely missed the point..
i think what the conrty needs are more tougher sentences, if your are given LIFE in prison, thats it you're stuck in there for LIFE non of this probabtion BS!! even at school i think the government should allow tougher punishment in schools because i dont detentions (can easily get out of those by saying "i have a dentist appointment") and suspensions are enough to teach kids about the consequencies that come from doing wrong. MORE POLICE PATROL and MORE UNMARKED POLICE PLEASE!! with some sort of defence as standard (TASER GUNS, or even pistols)coz i dont think the night sticks are doing it for them, only thing the police are good at these days are catching uninsured drivers when around 800 ppl are getting stabbed everyday in broad daylight, cant walk down the street these days with out fear of getting stabbed because you "looked" at a gang member in a "disrespectful way" when the sun is glaring in your eyes..
- George, London, 05/01/2010 15:59
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To Alan in Bow, London,
The sentence will not be passed until The acused have had time to explain why they did it to the probation services etc. Then the judge decides if they show, showed remorse what what they have done.
Simple answer is, it now gives them time to cry their little hearts out to some Hippy wanna be probation officer who will of course, leave them with a gleaming report of broken homes, fatherless childhoods etc etc etc etc etc etc.......
- M Kenny, Derbyshire, 05/01/2010 15:59
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This is not the fault of these children's parents, nor the music / films they watch. This whole gang culture boils down to the fact that we have always had gangs in this country, the same as most in the world, only now the members are getting younger and more brutal. There is no way to put a stop to this culture as many governments around the world have found.
The only thing we can really do is teach our children from a very young age (I.E the minuet they can understand plain English)what impact gangs have on victims and the lives of their families.
- Peri Morgan, Cardiff Wales, 05/01/2010 15:59
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What is wrong with Capital punishment under these circumstances? A breach of Human rights, but then were they being humane? Perhaps send them off to Guantamo Bay - cheaper than the £30k /year in prison!
- Munir, Portsmouth, 05/01/2010 15:59
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Perhaps it's time for a death penalty in crimes like this. To be honest, all this life sentence won't do nothing. They're going to be released after probably 15 to 20 years on good behaviour. Like someone said, all these idiot teenage murderers have to do is cry to their probation officer about broken homes and abusive dads and they get to walk.
- Akin, Birmingham, UK, 05/01/2010 15:59
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"..the Police will become legitamate targets as well and that will lead to ever more USA style Policing.
- Clif, London"
What is wrong with USA style policing? The streets in American cities are safer than the city streets in the UK, and that is in large part due to the devotion to duty and the "Protect and Serve" philosophy of the ordinary cops. We don't have a police force like that. What we have is a bunch of form-filling, box-ticking social workers running around in police officer's uniforms, obsessed with health and safety issues and political correctness. The force is full of people like that from the Chief Constables right down to the cops on the beat.
Don't knock American cops if you haven't been there and seen how they operate - or do you form your opinions from watching gangster movie shoot-outs? Give us American policemen, please!
- Peter, Warwick, UK, 05/01/2010 15:59
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I really beleive that removing corpral punishment from both schools and parents have contributed the issues.
In that, kids grow up with NO sense of consiquence. They don't realise that if they do wrong, they will be punished in some way.
They start thinking that they can do what they want as nothing will happen to them.
The only time they realise is when they are arrested. and cry like babies because it finally dawns on them that they have to pay for what they have done.
We should be able to punish kids. If a single mother can't, then ask a male to do it. But at the end of the day, kids needs to know that if they do wrong, then something will happen.
And if they do good then, equally something good will happen.
its like cutlivating good behavior.
It may sound drastic, but what is the alternative?
- Owen Falconer, Birmingham, uk, 05/01/2010 15:59
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Upsetting to hear how brutal and savage like shakilus was murdered.... but being someone who had spent some time with Andre, i would never imagine him to have done something like this...
- Shayan E, London, England, 05/01/2010 15:59
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You do not want USA type of policing. I live in the US and many Police officers are law abiding and do that job, but there is a good percentage of them that have a "God Complex." Just look a the Harvard Professor with a cane that was arrested outside of his own home for yelling at a Police Officer. (Henry Louis Gates Jr., one of the nation's pre-eminent African -American scholars) Freedom of Speech is suppose to protect you from saying what ever you want to the government. But apparently in the U.S you can't tell a police officer in your home go to "BUG OFF".
- Alex, San Francisco, CA U.S.A, 05/01/2010 15:59
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Its a horrible thing that happend, I cant believe people would physically and mentally be capable of doin such a thing.
I went to school with the heartless bitch that caused this, I never much liked her but not for an instant thought someone so close to my surroundings would be capable.
As for Andre Thompson, I did briefly have a close relationship to him, Im not to supprised to be honest but still what corrupts somebodys mind into doing such a thing to somebody? i mean someones child.
Andre Johnson-Haynes is a complete shock, but am convinced he is guilty, I have known Andre for about 5 years now, at first he was a good boy, his mum would pick him up if it was too late for public transport, she sent him to a private school because she did not want him to be around this sort of thing, but he was always impressed by gang culture, always tried to prove he was something he wasnt, i spoke to him a day after the murder, part of me knew something wasnt right but i at first paid no attention to it, i knew he was involved with these people but didnt know he was capable of this...
Its realy sad, shocking and sickenin... I feel to apologise on behalf of them but it aint enough.... I just hope they get what they deserve.
RIP shakilus, and may peace be with the family
- Kaya M, South London, 05/01/2010 15:59
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