A 19-year-old student who fatally stabbed a former friend in the heart following a dispute over a fake Rolex watch has been jailed for 10 years for manslaughter.
Harper Dennis delivered five knife blows to the chest of 20-year-old Khaleed Oladipo during an attack near Leicester‘s De Montfort University on the evening of 3 February this year.
Following a two-week trial at Leicester Crown Court, a jury cleared Dennis, of North Road, West Drayton, London, of murder. However, on Tuesday, he was convicted of manslaughter, possessing an offensive weapon, and failing to disclose the Pin to his mobile phone.
Prosecutor Jane Osborne KC explained to the court that Dennis killed Mr Oladipo, whom he had met through online video gaming, over what was described as a “perceived debt”.
Giving evidence, Dennis admitted giving Mr Oladipo £6,000 from his savings intended for a scheme to defraud people. When the funds were not repaid, the victim handed him a Rolex watch to sell to recoup the money, though Dennis subsequently discovered the timepiece was a fake.
The fatal altercation took place on Oxford Street, close to De Montfort University’s Innovation Centre, and was recorded on dashcam footage.
Sentencing Dennis, who sat in the dock wearing a dark suit, Judge Timothy Spencer KC remarked that he had harboured a “seething resentment” towards Mr Oladipo.
open image in galleryAddressing the defendant, the judge said: “You took a knife to the fight, you used it, this was not a one-off thrust of the knife but five separate applications and it should have been obvious to you this carried a high risk of serious harm.”
Judge Spencer added: “The background is murky. You and Khaleed were certainly known to each other. You were probably at times pretty friendly.
“The moral high ground is simply not open to you. You have painted yourself as wronged, but the reality is the financial transactions in this case were all to do with scams.
“This money was designed to fund criminal activity. The dispute between the two of you was further fuelled by him providing a Rolex watch which you viewed as some part compensation for your losses, that turned out to be fake and that did not assuage your bitterness.”
Noting that both young men had their “lives ahead of you”, the judge continued: “You had taken a knife to the struggle, a knife to the fight. How exactly you knew he would be where he was on Oxford Street is unclear.
“The process of trying to determine that has never been assisted by you. You knew where he was and where he was to be found and that is why you had taken a knife with you.
“You were the smaller of the two, much more lightly built, but you were the one with the weapon and it is right to note that on the face of it, he seemed to get the better of you.
“That was in his desperation to save his life as he knew you had the knife and he was trying to prevent you from using it.
“If that was his purpose, he did not succeed because you were able to stab him and stab him effectively five times, including that fatal stab wound to the chest.
“This is not a case of a single desperate stab wound – this is one of five thrusts of the knife. You knew you had something serious in mind because you covered your face immediately before.”
Prior to sentencing, a victim impact statement from Mr Oladipo’s sister, Precious Oladipo, was presented to the court by Ms Osborne, describing how their mother was “so unwell with grief” that she had withdrawn from normal life.
Her statement read: “The loss of a child is brain-altering. He was, in every sense, her light and joy and losing him has hollowed her out.
“She cries every single day, including at her workplace, the hospital. She mumbles that she sent Khaleed off to university, as she always did after the holidays, and he simply never came home.”
She added: “The home we shared that was once full of laughter is now largely silent.
“Khaleed will not graduate, he will not see his 21st birthday which he had been so looking forward to. Every future milestone will now be marked by his absence instead of his presence.
“We are bereft, there is no joy or happiness in our home. We move through life monotonously.
“No-one is okay.”
The court heard that after inflicting the fatal wounds, Dennis fled the scene and passed a bag containing his clothing to his flatmate.
At the moment of the assault, Mr Oladipo was on the phone to his girlfriend, who overheard him asking: “Why did you come up to me and stab me?”.
It also emerged that on Christmas Day last year, Dennis had called Mr Oladipo’s girlfriend, Shekeizah Fowler-Palmer, twice to claim her partner was a “bad guy”.
During his testimony, Dennis claimed he feared for his life and insisted he acted in self-defence when Mr Oladipo approached him carrying a knife.
He told the court he was unaware he had inflicted fatal knife wounds during the struggle and was “shocked” when police arrested him on suspicion of murder at his student accommodation later that night.
open image in galleryDescribing his attempt to sell the counterfeit watch, Dennis told the jury: “I went to Hatton Garden to sell the watch. I went to the jewellery shop. Two jewellers looked at the watch, they examined it and realised it was fake.
“It made me feel a bit annoyed, bit kind of disappointed in Khaleed that he let me down.”
Dennis, who acknowledged suffering from a gambling addiction, admitted he had threatened to expose Mr Oladipo on the internet as someone who “can’t be trusted” and a “bad businessman”.
Mitigating for Dennis, who had no previous criminal record, Tim Forte KC characterised the stabbing as “fleeting, short, unpremeditated, but horrendously tragic”.
Mr Forte described his client as possessing a “positive” character and noted that he felt genuine remorse.
He argued: “He does have some prospects, he is a young man, he will go inside for a number of years, but he is not so without talent or intellect, he can gain some additional qualifications.
“He will come out as someone who can apply his mind and skills to work and training and education.
“This is the first and only transgression and one hopes that his age demonstrates there is a lack of maturity, a lack of consideration of impact.
“There is no cliff face at the age of 18. All too often it is teenagers of his age who find themselves before the courts in connection with a knife-wielding catastrophe.”
Addressing Dennis’s lack of cooperation, Judge Spencer told him: “You have never assisted this investigation, you have never even tried to shed light fully on what was going on here.
“From the start you have steadfastly refused to give your Pin number to your phone which would have given access to probably really important digital information.”
open image in galleryThe judge added: “Your claims of genuine remorse have a very hollow ring. Someone who is truly remorseful would have been much more forthcoming.
“I am prepared to accept there is an element of remorse. I think you have matured to the realisation that this was a wholly unnecessary loss of life.”
Ahead of the verdict, Detective Inspector Lorna Granville, of the East Midlands Special Operations Unit Major Crime Team, commented: “It’s a shocking set of circumstances and quite rightly, and expectedly, creates a huge impact on the student community.
“This is not deep entrenched criminality. What it appears is two young men with their lives ahead of them have had a falling out and one has reacted, I would say, completely disproportionately and unnecessarily to exact some retribution”.
Speaking of the victim’s relatives, she added: “They are grieving. They are slowly realising that potentially this was over a silly dispute and they have to live with the loss of that for eternity and they are struggling to come to terms with that.”