Three found guilty of Kinsella murder

Three men were found guilty yesterday of murdering Ben Kinsella, the 16-year-old brother of former EastEnders actress Brooke Kinsella, who was stabbed to death outside a north London bar.

Juress Kika, 19, Jade Braithwaite, 18, and Michael Alleyne, 20, were convicted by a jury at the Old Bailey, the Press Association reported. All three, who are from London, had denied murder.

The court was told that Ben and his friends had been to a bar in Islington, north London to celebrate the end of their GCSE exams last June when a row broke out.

Although the confrontation had nothing to do with him, he was chased along the street with other youngsters and stabbed to death when he stopped running.

Ben was stabbed 11 times in just seconds by the three defendants in what was seen as an act of revenge for "disrespect" shown to Mr Braithwaite.

Outside court Ben's father George said: "Knife crime is now sadly embedded in the very heart of Great Britain. Parents live in fear until their children are safely home.

"It can be for a wrong word, a wrong look, or a wrong post code. In Ben's case it was simply nothing to do with him at all."

He said his son's "only crime was to be the last one running away from those animals."

Brooke Kinsella and her family had wiped away tears as CCTV images were shown to the jury in which Ben could be seen staggering around after being stabbed.

After the verdicts, Ben's tearful mother read a statement to the court in which she said her son's killers would never know the terrible pain they had caused.

"The people who murdered him knew nothing about our Ben, not a hair on his head, a bone in his body, not anything about our wonderful son.

"They had never met him before or spoken to him, they just cruelly took his life away with knives for no apparent reason."

Nicholas Hilliard for the prosecution told the court that Ben was a totally innocent bystander.

He said Ben and some of his friends had left Shillibeers bar in North Road, Islington, shortly before 2 a.m.

A crowd had gathered outside after a row between Braithwaite and his friends and a group known to Ben, spilled outside.

Ben and his schoolfriends decided to leave as the group dispersed. Mr Braithwaite ran off to look for back-up and returned with Alleyne and Kika, chasing the crowd of boys and girls.

"There had been all that posturing by Mr Braithwaite. It seems he had been chased away but that his reputation was at stake," Mr Hilliard said.