PLEASE NOTE THIS STORY MAKES UNPLEASANT READING
A teenager who posted a video on Snapchat of the heavily bleeding 63-year-old man he had fatally stabbed walked free from court on Monday, December 12, 2022.
The Luton youth, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is to be placed under intensive supervision, having already served the equivalent of a two year sentence in custody.
The 16-year-old uploaded six or seven seconds of footage from his mobile phone showing fatally-wounded Bolton-businessman Ghulam Raja.
Prosecutor Sarah Morris told Luton Crown Court that Mr Raja was stabbed four times with a large kitchen knife, once to the front right thigh, once to the neck and twice to the head. One stab entered the brain and caused a catastrophic fatal injury.
“This defendant did not call for an ambulance. He unlocked his mobile phone, went into the Snapchat App and recorded a seven or eight seconds video clip and uploaded it to Snapchat,” she said.
He recorded 63-year-old Mr Raja, who had travelled to Luton to visit his mother, bleeding heavily on a bed that had been set up in the living room.
After three minutes the boy dialled 999 saying: “There has been a murder.”
He said the victim had been stabbed and he was the offender. When asked by the operator what weapon had been used, he is said to have replied sarcastically: “A knife innit, what do you think? I done it. It was self-defence though.”
The youth, who is now 17 and was 16 at the time, denied murdering Mr Raja in the afternoon of Monday, November 15, 2021.
He was cleared of murdering Mr Raja, but was convicted by the jury on November 21, 2022, of manslaughter.
He was brought back to court for sentence on Monday, December 12, 2022.
At an earlier trial a jury was unable to reach a verdict.
Ms Morris told the jury of six men and six women: “He went to the kitchen, armed himself with a kitchen knife. The victim was unarmed.”
She said Mr Raja’s only interest in coming to Luton was to visit his elderly mother who he had not seen for many, many months. He had been in Pakistan and was delayed there by the coronavirus pandemic.
When the police arrived, they drew Tasers and told the youth to come outside and to get to the ground. He complied and was arrested for attempted murder.
Ms Morris said when the youth was medically examined at the police station, there was only a small mark on his right arm.
When interviewed, he answered “no comment” to police questions.
Mr Raja was taken by land ambulance to the Luton and Dunstable Hospital and was transferred to Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, where he died on Saturday, November 20, 2021.
The youth said he was lawfully defending himself and another person in the house.
He told the jury that Mr Raja had his arm around his neck and he was struggling to breathe.
Asked by his barrister Naeem Mian KC what he was thinking, he replied: “When he done that it was tighter and tighter and getting harder for me to breath.
“At that point I just wanted him to stop. I just wanted him to stop. I thought I was going to die.”
In a victim impact statement Mr Raja’s widow mother-of-two Shehnaz Khan said her family’s happiness has been destroyed by his death. “It is impossible to put over the pain and emotional distress into words.”
Click here for a daily news service:
http://www.bedsbulletin.com/bulletin/sign-up/
She said he had donated his heart, lung, spleen liver and kidneys to save the lives of five people.
Mrs Khan described her husband as a great man who was a “pillar of the community.”
Defending, Mr Mian said the youth had already served the equivalent of a two year sentence on remand. He said he was a young boy who had an exemplary character.
Judge Mr Justice Jeremy Johnson KC said he took into account the time the youth has spent in custody when he made a Youth Rehabilitation order with intensive supervision for 12 months.
He must attend 91 days specified activity, be supervised for 12 months and abide by a 12 hour curfew from 7pm for 21 months.
The judge said that after after the stabbing his first reaction was to take out his phone, but not to call for help, but to film the victim. The judge said: “Having taken the video you uploaded it to Snapchat. That video caused great distress to Ghulam’s family.
“Eventually, more than three minutes after inflicting dreadful wounds you dialled 999.”
