Drug dealer, 17, jailed for fatal stabbing of rival

Prosecutors said Jesse Nwokejiobi was killed in a dispute over who had "right" to deal drugs in the nature reserve

A 17-year-old boy who stabbed another drug dealer to death at a city nature reserve has been sentenced to four years' youth detention.

Jesse Nwokejiobi, also 17, was fatally wounded at Logan's Meadow next to the River Cam in Cambridge on 19 November.

The defendant, who is from London and cannot be named due to his age, admitted manslaughter.

A second youth admitted affray and drug dealing and was given a youth rehabilitation order.

The court heard that Jesse Nwokejiobi had moved to his mother's home in Cambridge due to "things happening" in London

The pair were originally charged with murder, but the prosecution accepted the lesser charges.

Prosecutor Nic Lobbenberg KC told Huntingdon Crown Court the victim and killer were concerned with rival drug dealing mobile phone lines "over who had the right to deal in Logan's Meadow".

He said Jesse Nwokejiobi, who was 6ft 6in (2m) tall and was wearing a balaclava, arrived at the nature reserve on a scooter, and drew a knife, but was stabbed in an incident that lasted 46 seconds in total.

The killer and the other boy, who were both 16 at the time, spent the night at the home of James Heath, 45, who was described in court as a drug user.

The following day the younger pair got the train to London, where they lived.

Tana Adkin KC, counsel for the 17-year-old convicted of manslaughter, said he had a reading age of 12 and hand been "vulnerable" to criminality.

The other boy was given an 18-month youth rehabilitation order and must carry out 120 hours of unpaid work.

His barrister Liam Walker KC said he had been a victim of modern slavery and exploited into forced drug dealing.

Heath, of Queens Close in Harston near Cambridge, admitted two counts of assisting an offender and two counts of being concerned in the supply of class A drugs.

He was jailed for three years.

Jesse Nwokejiobi, pictured at a younger age, was described as an aspiring electrical engineer

In a statement read in court, the dead youth's mother Rita Ofor said she had forgiven the other two boys and hoped to "be able to speak to them and tell them that the path they are going down is of destruction".

His father Henry Nwokejiobi had previously said his son moved in with his mother in Cambridge because "things were happening" in Mill Hill in north-west London where he had lived.

"Honestly I thought he would be safer in Cambridge," he said, adding that he loved playing rugby, singing and rapping.

The judge, Mr Justice Butcher KC, said: "This is yet another case in which a young man has been pointlessly killed and other young lives blighted as a result of drug dealing."