Boys' murder trial told of chat with stabbed teen

Muhammad Hassam Ali, aged 17, was fatally stabbed through the heart in Birmingham city centre

Two 15-year-old boys followed a teenager out of a shopping centre and "engineered" a conversation with him before one of the pair stabbed him through the heart, a court heard.

Muhammad Hassam Ali, 17, received a fatal stab wound while he sat with a friend on a wall by the fountain in Birmingham’s Victoria Square on the afternoon of Saturday 20 January.

The accused boys, who cannot be named because of their age, deny murder and possessing a bladed article in a public place.

Both appeared at Coventry Crown Court on Monday, with their trial expected to last up to three weeks.

Opening the case for the prosecution, Mark Heywood KC said Muhammad Ali, known as Ali, had been meeting a friend in a coffee shop in Grand Central shopping centre and when they left, they were followed out of the precinct by the accused.

The defendants followed Ali and his friend towards Victoria Square at the top of New Street, the jury of six men and six women were told.

It was there the 15-year-olds "engineered a conversation" lasting about four minutes in which Ali was asked whether he "knew who it was who had jumped a mate of theirs a week before", the barrister explained.

He said when Ali informed them he did not know what they were talking about and told them to “go away”, he was stabbed.

The wound to the chest penetrated his heart and despite the efforts of paramedics, was not survivable.

Due to their age, the defendants will hear evidence not from the dock but from the well of the court, while the judge and barristers forego traditional robes and wigs.

The trial continues.