A 16-year-old boy posted a video on Snapchat of a heavily bleeding 63-year-old man he had just stabbed, a murder trial jury heard on Monday, October 31, 2022.
The Luton teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, uploaded six or seven seconds of footage from his mobile phone showing fatally-wounded Bolton-man Ghulam Raja.
Prosecutor Sarah Morris told Luton Crown Court that before the attack the teenager was heard to shout: “I am going to kill him.”
She said he stabbed Mr Raja four times with a 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 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.
The youth, who is now 17, denies murdering Mr Raja in the afternoon of Monday 15th November last year.
Ms Morris told the jury of 6 men and 6 women: “The crown say the video clip is crucial to your decision. It tells you he is someone revelling in the fact he has just stabbed him.
“He gets to broadcast it over social media and is boasting to the people who know him. He is someone who is aggressive and desperately hyped-up.
“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.
After speaking to a relative, 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.”
When the police arrived, they drew Tasers and told the youth to come outside. He was told 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 20th November.
At the start of the trial the judge, Justice Jeremy Johnson KC, told the jury: It is unlikely there will be a dispute he caused the injuries that led to the death.” He said the defence will be that he was defending himself and another person in the house.
He will say he was lawfully defending himself and his mother
Case proceeding
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