Man guilty of murder after stabbing teen in neck

Jeremiah Sewell took himself to hospital but died from the stab wound to his neck

A young man has been found guilty of murdering a teenager by stabbing him twice in the neck because he came from the wrong neighbourhood.

Godfrey Madondo, 20, killed Jeremiah Sewell, 19, following a "chance meeting" in Beckenham Place Park, in south London, on 16 July last year.

Old Bailey jurors heard Madondo's motive "appears to be simply because the deceased came from Beckenham".

The defendant and his friends were from Peckham, south London.

Prosecutor Alan Kent KC told jurors: "It was a chance meeting, in the early hours of the morning, in an otherwise deserted car park in the middle of a public park."

The court was told that following the murder, two other defendants, Khelsi Johnson-Davies, 20, and Leah Simmonds, 20, had cleaned and threw away Madondo's bloodstained clothes.

Johnson-Davies, of Peckham, was found guilty of perverting the course of justice, while Simmonds, of Dulwich, previously admitted the charge.

A fourth defendant, Kadjo Kadio, 19, from Romford Essex, was cleared of murder and an alternative offence of manslaughter.

The court heard the victim had been with a group in the park who were inhaling laughing gas from balloons, playing music and swapping places in their cars.

At 04:25, the defendants arrived in a black Astra and Madondo got out of the front passenger seat wearing a balaclava and approached the victim's car.

'Incriminating" conversations'

Someone heard the question: "What ends you with?"

Mr Sewell replied: "I'm a B boy."

Within seconds, he was stabbed twice in the neck and also received a superficial cut to the shoulder.

Mr Sewell was driven to Lewisham Hospital where he died just over an hour later.

Madondo was arrested the next day. Johnson-Davies was arrested at home a few days later and a grey balaclava with Madondo's DNA on it was seized, jurors heard.

An examination of her phone led to "incriminating" conversations with Simmonds in which she advised her to wash Madondo's bloodstained clothes at "90 degrees", the court was told.

Madondo is set to be sentenced on Friday.

He adjourned sentencing of the two women to a date to be fixed in August and granted Johnson-Davies conditional bail.

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