Fares Maatou: Teenagers handed life terms for killing boy with sword

Fares Maatou, 14, was killed in broad daylight in Newham, east London

Two boys have been detained for life for murdering a 14-year-old boy with a sword concealed inside a walking stick.

Fares Maatou was stabbed to death by the pair, who were aged 14 and 15 at the time and cannot be named for legal reasons, in Canning Town, east London, last April.

Now aged 16, they were found guilty of murder last week at the Old Bailey.

Judge Sarah Munro QC said there was no suggestion Fares was involved in any violence leading up to his death.

The youth who inflicted the fatal wound was handed a life sentence with a minimum term of 13 years while his co-defendant, who hit Fares with the sheath, was handed a life sentence with a minimum 11-year term.

'Never been in trouble'

Both defendants had a history of offending, with the former being subject to a youth rehabilitation order at the time of the murder.

In her sentencing remarks, Judge Munro said: "Fares was the light of his mother's life. He was her youngest child and a well-behaved young man who had never been in any trouble.

Fares Maatou died on Barking Road in April 2021

"Fares's parents came to this country from Algeria to escape the violence that they had experienced there, only for them to lose their son on the streets of London where he had hoped he and his family would be safe."

Jurors heard Fares suffered a single 11cm (4.3in) injury to the left side of his upper back, caused by the sword, which had been stolen from the grandfather of one defendant and passed to the other.

The then 14-year-old beat Fares with the sheath before both youths fled the scene, the Old Bailey heard. He died soon afterwards.

People placed flowers where Fares died on Barking Road last April

In a victim impact statement read to court, Fares's mother Amel Maatou said the family had come to Britain to escape the "death and misery" of civil war in Algeria before he was born.

She said: "Fares never harmed anyone and was just a happy-go-lucky child.

"Everyone liked Fares, he liked everyone in return. Fares was never in trouble with the police and was not involved in gangs or crime. He had high hopes for his future."

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