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Michael Alleyne, left, and Juress Kika |
Life for football star who turned killer
A FORMER pupil of Haverstock School – once scouted by Arsenal as a promising young goalkeeper – was one of three men sentenced to life in prison on Friday for the murder of teenager Ben Kinsella.
Jade Braithwaite, 20, of Bayham Street, Camden Town, Michael Alleyne, 18, and Juress Kika, 19 – both from Holloway – were found guilty by an Old Bailey jury on Thursday of knifing 16-year-old Ben, described as “totally blameless” during the trial.
The “straight A” Holloway School pupil was chased and stabbed 11 times in North Road, near the junction with York Way, after a night out celebrating the start of the summer holidays in June last year.
The Common Serjeant of London, Judge Brian Barker, told the defendants they took part in a “brutal, cowardly and totally unjustified attack” and that their action “defies belief”. He added: “His family will never get over it but he will never be forgotten.”
Braithwaite, Kika and Alleyne will serve at least 19 years before they are allowed to apply for parole. Six-foot-six tall Braithwaite sat weeping in his cell after sentencing. He has been given a letter warning him he may be attacked in prison and is likely to start his sentence in solitary confinement.
After the verdicts were read out on Thursday, he sat head bowed as Ben’s mother Debbie read out a statement. She said: “No parent or sibling should ever have to go through or see what we have seen with our son.
“He died in front of us. We then had to visit him in a morgue, the undertakers and finally to bury him. Nearly a year on, our nights are still filled with nightmares, of our son’s last moments and what he went through that fatal night.”
Braithwaite left Shillibeers Bar that night in a rage. He had been “disrespected” by about 20 younger boys, called a “pussy” and “humiliated” on his own turf. At no time was Ben involved in the row. But Braithwaite phoned his two friends and returned to exact a chilling revenge.
The detective in the case, John Macdonald, told the New Journal: “I think this guy thought ‘I’ve been embarrassed’ – but it is an extreme response.”
He rejected claims that under-age drinking – a Town Hall review of Shillibeers’ licence revealed how bouncers were not checking drinkers for ID at the doors – had fuelled the attack. “It is simply complete and total ignorance and an inability to rationalise,” he said. “These people are socially inept.”
Kika, Alleyne and Braithwaite were known to Islington police and “post-court” services. Kika had been sought by police in connection with a stabbing in Highbury 10 days before the killing. He was arrested but charges were later dropped. Alleyne was serving a training order after being released early from an 18-month sentence for dealing heroin and crack.
Braithwaite, although regarded as a petty criminal, was given a one-year sentence in 2007 for a “cowardly and vicious” attack on another schoolboy, but this was later reduced to a community order.
The New Journal has learned that the Kinsella murder triggered a review of Islington’s specialist team which monitors young offenders released early from prison. A “serious incident report”, compiled by the Youth Justice Board, revealed a breakdown in communication between probation services, which agree the conditions of a prisoner’s release with the courts, and Islington Council’s young offending team (YOT), which attempts to ensure those conditions are not breached.
A spokeswoman said: “Information sharing between the council, the police, probation services and others has been improved. We now have a probation officer based with the YOT and a senior manager from London Probation serves on the management board.”
The recent murder of two French students in London highlighted problems besetting the probation service, in particular heavy caseloads, re-offending rates and the fractured relationship between the court service and officials monitoring offenders under supervision orders.
J Man, the goalkeeper whose mum watched every match
Jade Braithwaite |
AS a boy, Jade Braithwaite distinguished himself as a promising goalkeeper at St Pancras Football Club.
He was named Players’ Player of the Year three times and won a haul of medals for “The Saints” youth teams until 2003 when he was snapped up by scouts at Arsenal.
He seemed to have a bright future ahead of him, but just four years after leaving the club he adored, the saint had turned sinner.
Jade, or “J Man” as he was known locally, was sent to prison for at least 19 years on Friday for the murder of Ben Kinsella.
He was 19 at the time of the stabbing. During sentencing on Friday he was branded a “coward” by the judge. To detectives he was the “weak party”, after he cracked under interrogation and began blaming his mates for the knifing. He looked terrified as he was led out of the court in handcuffs to the cells.
It was not the first time “J Man” had been in trouble. In 2007, he was given a one-year sentence – later changed to a community order – for a “cowardly and vicious attack” on another schoolboy. He admitted trying to take a laptop from the boy, who was repeatedly punched and had his face stamped on.
Braithwaite, who grew up in Camden Town, was a pupil of Haverstock School, in Chalk Farm, between 2000 and 2005.
Dozens of his early football matches for the “Super Saints” in the Camden and Islington Youth League were chronicled in the sports pages of the New Journal. One match report of a cup clash with Lyndhurst in August 2001 said: “In the end, Braithwaite proved the hero of the hour after making two magnificent saves in a nerve-racking penalty shoot out.” It was Jade’s first match in goal – he normally played centre back – but he obviously got a taste for it because it was his talent between the sticks that attracted Arsenal’s youth scouts.
In 2003 he spent seven months on trials at Highbury, at a time when manager Arsene Wenger’s youth development project was beginning to define the Premier League club.
But he did not quite make the grade and began training as a coach in Maitland Park and working with a team in Primrose Hill.
Old acquaintances said they were “gobsmacked” to hear he had been involved in a murder. He was remembered as a “polite” lad, an “awkward” lanky beanpole and a team player. He was cherished by his mum, who came to every match he played as a boy.
She was in the public gallery on Friday, sandwiched between the jubilant Kinsella family, to watch him begin his sentence.
Something happened to him as he entered his late teens. Whether he fell in with the wrong crowd is unclear, but the phone call he made to “hire” his accomplices Michael Alleyne and Juress Kika that fateful night in June last year will haunt him forever. |
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