Murder of Richard Everitt

Richard Norman Everitt was a 15-year-old white boy living in Somers Town, in the London Borough of Camden, an area that in the early 1990s was experiencing urban decay and ethnic tensions between white and Bengali residents. Everitt attended South Camden Community School, where such tensions existed, though he was not personally involved in them. Weeks before his death, he had been attacked by a Bangladeshi group, an incident that led his parents to raise concerns with a teacher.

On the night of 13 August 1994, Everitt had been playing football and went out with friends to buy food. Walking along Midland Road and then Brill Place between roughly 9pm and 10pm, he encountered a gang of Asian youths who had set off from the Euston area intending to find and confront an Irish teenager, Liam Coyle, over a dispute involving stolen property. The gang had earlier assaulted another boy, Mark Andrew, after he denied knowing Coyle. When the gang encountered Everitt and two friends, one member demanded to know if they knew Coyle; when the answer was no, Everitt's friends fled and escaped, but Everitt was caught and stabbed once in the back with a seven-inch kitchen knife, the blade piercing his heart. He died at hospital shortly afterward. Badrul Miah was later reported to have boasted to acquaintances that the group had "stabbed up a white boy," and blood matching Everitt's was found on Miah's clothing and trainers when he was arrested.

Eleven men were arrested and bailed during the investigation. Three defendants — Badrul Miah, Showat Akbar, and Abdul Hai — were tried at the Old Bailey beginning 5 October 1995. The prosecution argued the killing was a joint enterprise and did not claim to know definitively who wielded the knife. On 1 November 1995, Miah was convicted of conspiring to murder Everitt and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of twelve years; Akbar was convicted of violent disorder and given three years' youth detention. The trial judge directed the jury to acquit Abdul Hai, ruling there was no case for him to answer.

A campaign supported by advocacy groups including Liberty and the Society of Black Lawyers subsequently sought Miah and Akbar's release, alleging racial bias in the trial. Their appeal, which centered on a disputed note allegedly written by a juror, was rejected by the Court of Appeal in November 1996, and a further appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in July 1998 also failed. Miah was released from prison in 2008.

The murder caused shock in Somers Town and was followed by a firebombing of a halal butcher's shop and attacks by white gangs on Bengali residents. Everitt's family faced abuse from Bengali neighbours after the convictions and relocated, first to Essex and later to northern England. His mother subsequently campaigned for stronger sentencing for knife crime. Abdul Hai, following his acquittal, later became a Labour Party politician on Camden Council. Memorials to Everitt have been established near the site of his death, including a plaque and bench later replaced in 2024 after the original site was sold for development.