A student who stabbed his former friend through the heart after an argument about a fake Rolex watch has been sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment.
Sky News reports that jury at Leicester Crown Court found Harper Dennis, 19, not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter, having an offensive weapon and failing to provide the PIN to his phone on Tuesday.
The court heard that Dennis plunged a knife into the chest of Khaleed Oladipo, 20, five times while near De Montfort University in Leicester on the evening of February 3 this year.
Prosecutor Jane Osborne KC told the jury Dennis, of West Drayton, London, killed Mr Oladipo, whom he made friends with through online gaming, because of a “perceived debt”.
During the two-week trial, Ms Osborne told the court that on the day of the incident, Mr Oladipo and Dennis were both on Oxford Street near De Montfort University’s Innovation Centre.
She said that the stabbing was captured on dashcam footage, and that after the attack, Dennis left the scene and gave a bag of clothes to his flatmate.
Mr Oladipo was on the phone with his girlfriend at the time of the attack, the court heard, who heard him say: “Why did you come up to me and stab me?”
Judge Timothy Spencer KC told Dennis that he had developed a “seething resentment” towards the victim.
He said: “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.”
Giving evidence, Dennis told the court he feared for his life and was acting in self-defence when Mr Oladipo approached him with a knife.
He also told jurors he had sent Mr Oladipo £6,000 of savings, given to him by his parents, to make money by scamming people.
Dennis then said he did not receive his money back, so Mr Oladipo gave him a Rolex watch, telling him it was real and he could sell it.
“I went to Hatton Garden to sell the watch”, he said. “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 also told the court he had a gambling addiction, and said he threatened to expose Mr Oladipo online as someone who “can’t be trusted” and a “bad businessman”.
In a victim impact statement read to the court by Ms Osborne before Dennis was sentenced, Mr Oladipo’s sister Precious Oladipo said their mother has become withdrawn because she is “so unwell with grief”.
She said: “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.”
(Ripples)
