Prisoner 'urged deadly Thamesmead attack from phone in cell'

A drug dealer used a telephone installed in his prison cell to demand a revenge attack that escalated into a brutal murder, a court has been told.

Olamide Fasina bled to death after he was set upon in the street in south-east London last year.

At the time, Steven Ngolo, 22, was behind bars serving a sentence for dealing cannabis.

However, he had access to a phone and used it to encourage friends to target Mr Fasina in retribution for a robbery.

Opening the trial at the Old Bailey, prosecutor Mark Fenhalls QC, read from transcripts of the calls which outlined discussions Ngolo had with his alleged conspirators the day before the attack.

Mr Fenhalls said: "It was not one of those situations where he had a phone smuggled in. It was one of these prisons where there is one in each of the cells."

During a series of calls Ngolo had "demanded, encouraged and urged" the attack on Mr Fasina in revenge for robbing a low-level drugs runner, he said.

Mr Fasina, 25, suffered multiple stab wounds to the chest, stomach and arm, one of which penetrated his heart, during the assault in Thamesmead on 14 October.

The prosecutor told jurors that the prison only allowed inmates at Thameside Prison, south-east London, to call approved listed family members.

However, the system was "flawed" because calls could easily be patched through to a third person in a conference call.

Mr Fenhalls said Ngolo's sister was one person who would patch calls through to his friends.

Ngolo, from south-east London, is accused with his co-defendants of conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm.

Louis Henry, 22, of Greenwich, Alvin Ansah-Baaphy, 23, of Old Dover Road, south east London, and Bliss Duodo, 22, from Greenwich, are also charged with murder.

They all deny the charges against them. The trial continues.