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Ben Kinsella murder: Ten years on, what has changed with UK knife crime? | ITV News
The creator's telling of the case, the strongest entry point on file.
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Ben Michael Kinsella (27 October 1991 – 29 June 2008) was a 16-year-old student at Holloway School, the brother of former EastEnders actress Brooke Kinsella. He had previously expressed concern about knife crime, including writing a letter to Prime Minister Gordon Brown as part of his GCSE coursework.
On the night of 28 June 2008, Kinsella was celebrating the end of his GCSE exams with friends at Shillibeers Brasserie Bar near Caledonian Road tube station in Islington. An altercation broke out between a friend of Kinsella's and a man named Osman Ozdemir, during which a friend of Ozdemir, Jade Braithwaite, made threats and implied he was armed. The dispute moved outside and escalated, with Ozdemir and another individual allegedly glassed. Braithwaite and his associates fled but then returned with Michael Alleyne and Juress Kika, seeking retaliation.
Shortly before 2:00am on 29 June, Kinsella and his friends left the area. When they noticed they were being followed, his friends ran, but Kinsella did not, reportedly because he believed he had not been involved in the earlier dispute. He was cornered between two vans by Braithwaite, Alleyne and Kika, and was heard pleading that he had done nothing wrong. He was then kicked, punched, and stabbed 11 times in the chest and back over approximately five seconds, sustaining wounds that punctured his lung, heart and pulmonary artery. He was pronounced dead at 07:24.
The murder, reported as the 17th teenage stabbing death in London that year, generated significant public attention and led to demonstrations against knife crime, including a march organised by a teenager via Facebook. The Kinsella family subsequently established the Ben Kinsella Trust and campaigned publicly against knife crime.
An investigation identified the three attackers through witness accounts, forensic evidence (including blood on Alleyne's jeans and traces on Kika's belt), and a covertly recorded conversation between the three men in a police van. Braithwaite, Alleyne and Kika were tried at the Old Bailey; all pleaded not guilty. On 11 June 2009, a jury returned unanimous guilty verdicts against all three. On 12 June 2009, Judge Brian Barker QC sentenced each to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 19 years, describing the attack as "brutal, cowardly and totally unjustified."
Following an appeal, Kika's challenge to his sentence was rejected in November 2009. The case, alongside campaigning by the Kinsella family and others, contributed to Justice Secretary Jack Straw's decision to raise the minimum sentencing tariff for knife murders from 15 to 25 years, a change implemented in 2010 and referred to as "Ben's Law." The case also raised the public profile of the Metropolitan Police's "Operation Blunt 2" anti-knife crime initiative.
