Khayri Mclean, a 15-year-old boy who was stabbed outside his school in Huddersfield, was killed in a “planned attack” by two teenagers wearing balaclavas, a court has heard.
The boys, aged 15 and 16 at the time of the killing, are charged with murdering Khayri on 21 September last year, after lying in wait for him outside North Huddersfield Trust school, in West Yorkshire, the prosecution said.
Jurors at Leeds crown court were shown a video of the attack and were told how Khayri staggered backwards and fell to the floor after being stabbed by the younger boy, before the older defendant stabbed Khayri again while he was on the ground.
The first blow would prove to be the fatal one, going through his ribs and penetrating one of his lungs and his heart, the jurors heard.
The court heard the older defendant’s mother heard about the stabbing and texted him, saying: “Your enemy has been stabbed and it doesn’t look good.”
He was arrested in the early hours of 22 September, while the younger defendant handed himself in to the police later that day, jurors were told, and later pleaded guilty to Khayri’s murder.
The older boy, who has since turned 17, denies murder and told police he was present at the stabbing but was only following another boy and that he swung out with a knife in a panic but had no intention of murdering Khayri.
The prosecutor Jonathan Sandiford KC said this was a “pack of lies” and that the boys “targeted him, attacked him with their knives” and chased him down the street.
Sandiford said the 15-year-old shouted “Oi Khayri” or “Yo Khayri” before jumping in the air, swinging a knife with a 30cm blade and stabbing Khayri in the chest. He said Khayri fell to the ground and was “defenceless on his back” when the 16-year-old went after him, knife in hand, and stabbed him again.
“Fortunately, Khayri was able to lift his legs to block the blow and so the knife penetrated his lower leg rather than a more vital part of his body,” the prosecutor said.
Prosecutors say that although the older defendant did not inflict the fatal blow, he is guilty of murder because the pair acted together and were “encouraging and supporting each other to carry out that attack”.
Sandiford said: “This was not an act of spontaneous violence but a planned attack in which [the two teenagers] armed themselves with knives, changed some of their clothing and wore balaclavas to hide their identities before going to lie in wait to attack Khayri as he walked home from school.”
Jurors were told the two boys were dressed in black clothes with black balaclavas and had their eyes covered, possibly by sunglasses, which they later left in bags concealed in woodland.
After being stabbed, jurors heard Khayri was helped up by his friends and ran a short distance back towards his school before he collapsed.
Paramedics, a passing doctor and air ambulance staff kept him alive long enough for him to be transferred to Leeds general infirmary, where he died shortly after 5pm that day, Sandiford said.
The trial continues.
