Reaction to the conviction of Ben Kinsella's killers
- 00:02:36
- ITN
Reaction to the conviction of Ben Kinsella's killers
Three youths have been found guilty of murdering 16-year-old Ben Kinsella - the brother of former EastEnders actress Brooke Kinsella. Juress Kika, 19, Jade Braithwaite, 18, and Michael Alleyne, 20, were convicted by a jury at the Old Bailey. Ben and his friends had been out at a bar to celebrate the end of their GCSE exams when a row broke out in Islington, north London, on June 29, last year. Although the confrontation had nothing to do with him, Ben was chased along the street with other youngsters and stabbed to death when he stopped running. He was stabbed 11 times in five seconds by the three youths in revenge for the "disrespect" shown to Braithwaite earlier. After the verdicts, it emerged Kika had been on the run from police for ten days following a robbery in which a man was knifed on June 19. Alleyne was being supervised by the local probation team as part of an 18-month detention and training order for drug dealing. He had been released three months earlier after serving half the sentence in a detention centre. There were shouts of "Yes" from members of the Kinsella family when the verdicts were announced. Some people in the public gallery also applauded. Ben's mother Deborah started sobbing after the first guilty verdict was delivered. After the verdicts, Mrs Kinsella read a victim impact statement to the court in which she said her son's killers would never know the pain they had caused to her family. She said: "The people who murdered him knew nothing about our Ben, not a hair on his head, a bone in his body, not anything about our wonderful son. "They had never met him before or spoken to him, they just cruelly took his life away with knives for no apparent reason. "We had brought Ben up to always walk away from trouble. This sadly cost him his life. "He walked away to get safely home and they took advantage of that - he was one boy on his own. It seems unfair. Their intent was to stab someone that night." She added: "We as his family have been left devastated and in total despair. Our whole world has been totally turned upside down. "Ben went for a good night out and never came home again." Ironically, Ben never lived to find out his "wonderful" exam results. Brooke Kinsella added: "I am overjoyed. "It's awful, awful, but we got all we needed - it's justice. There is never going to be enough justice but we have got it now." The killers were remanded in custody for sentencing on Friday.
ITN | June 11, 2009
