Talented Kiyan 'stabbed while trying to break up playfight'

13 April 2012

Promising footballer Kiyan Prince was stabbed to death at his school gates, the Old Bailey was told today.

Kiyan, 15, collapsed after being stabbed in the heart, said Nicholas Hilliard, prosecuting.

A 16-year-old, from north London, who cannot be named because of his age, denies murdering Kiyan at the London Academy in Edgware, north London, on May 18.

He has admitted Kiyan's manslaughter but this plea has been rejected by the prosecution.

Kiyan, who played for Queen's Park Rangers' youth team, was described by a teacher as "a gorgeous boy... very popular and well-liked by all who knew him", said Mr Hilliard.

He added: "The allegation is that this defendant murdered a 15-year-old boy by stabbing him in the heart with a knife.

"It is not in dispute that the defendant did that but his case is that it is not murder."

Mr Hilliard said the defendant had been excluded from his school at the time of Kiyan's death.

"There is no evidence of any bad feeling between the two of them," said Mr Hilliard.

Kiyan's parents, boxer Mark Prince and Tracey Cumberbatch, sat at the side of the court.

The defendant, wearing a short-sleeved white shirt, sat at the other side of the court behind his lawyers.

Before the stabbing, there had been some play-fighting between the 16-year-old defendant and another boy, Mr Hilliard told the jury.

When Kiyan told the two youths to "Stop playing around", the defendant went up to him and said "What's going on?" He then pushed Kiyan and Kiyan pushed him back, according to the other boy.

As the defendant stepped back, the boy said his hand went to his pocket.

Kiyan had asked "What is that?" and the defendant told him he would hit him if he did it again, said the witness.

When Kiyan pushed the defendant again, the other boy said he could see the 16-year-old had a knife.

The defendant asked: "Who's laughing? Who's laughing?" and went to grab Kiyan and grabbed him round the neck. Kiyan had stepped back when he saw the knife.

According to the other boy, the defendant then stabbed Kiyan once in the chest and once, he thought, in the leg.

As he went to stab him a third time, the other boy intervened, the court heard.

Kiyan was taken to the Royal London Hospital but pronounced dead.

The fatal stab wound had passed upwards from the lower part of the chest wall into the heart.

The following evening police arrested the defendant, who allegedly replied: "Yes, I know. But I want to talk to my mother first."

He said he had given the knife to another boy. Police later recovered a small silver folding pocket-knife, the jury were told.

The 16-year-old allegedly told police it was accident. He said that Witness A had been "showing off his chest and stuff like that".

As he walked past, he had asked him: "What, you think you're big?" When he went towards Kiyan, he said: "What, you think you're big as well?"

He allegedly told police that Witness A and Kiyan used to copy one another.

Pocket knife

The defendant said Kiyan had punched him and he had taken out the pocket knife and opened it.

Kiyan had punched him again and he had grabbed him in a headlock. He had intended to get him in the right arm "to leave a little cut there".

He told officers Kiyan had started swinging him about and he had "got him somewhere - I think it was in the chest or something... I know I got him in the stomach and the arm - that's when it stopped."

He had been trying to poke Kiyan in the arm - "just a little scratch there but it went deep in... cos I never used a knife before.

"I thought I stabbed him four times. I did not even know."

He was asked why he carrying a knife in the first place. "It was a little toy, it was like a toy I carried around every day."

Kiyan had tried to hide the blood as the teacher approached but fell to the ground.

A teacher at the school, Liejhe Hernandez, had witnessed the earlier play-fighting and thought she saw the defendant force another boy against a red car, snapping off the wing mirror. She called the deputy head on her mobile.

As Ms Hernandez approached, the defendant had allegedly said: "You can't grass me up. You can't grass me up. I was just playing. I was just playing," the court heard.

Kiyan collapsed to the ground. When the other boy - witness A - was asked by police later whether he thought the defendant had been playing around, he replied: "I wanna say he was playing about but I think... he knew... his friends were watching him, like."

Another witness - B - said the defendant had jumped on top of Kiyan and got him in a headlock, asking "Who do you think you are?"

Witness B said Kiyan was "a good person - he gets along with everyone. He don't have no enemies or nothing".

A third witness - C - had seen the play-fighting. Then he heard shouting as if it had started to sound like a real fight.

He saw the defendant punch Kiyan in the stomach. But when he saw the injuries he realised that the 16-year-old must have been stabbing him, said Mr Hilliard.

Miss Hernandez broke down in the witness box as she told the court how she first found Kiyan bleeding on the ground.

She described him as "a lovely boy - such a really nice boy - always smiling".

She was on gate duty as the school day ended and had seen two boys apparently play-fighting - their arms held out in front of them.

"It seemed very slow. I started to walk across to break it up."

She saw one boy swung against a car, snapping off a wing mirror.

"I knew I had to get help."

As she finished calling a colleague on her mobile, someone called: "Miss, miss, miss." She turned to see Witness A on the floor, tending to Kiyan.

In tears, the teacher said Witness A was "holding a shirt over one of Kiyan's arms. I saw it was bleeding. I told him to put pressure on the wound to the arm.

"He lifted Kiyan's shirt and jumper. I saw a little nick on his chest and told him to apply pressure to that. I did not realise how seriously he had been injured at first."

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