A teenager has been found guilty of murdering a 16-year-old boy at a seaside town train station in East Sussex over a £20 drug debt.
The teenager, 16, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was convicted by jurors at Hove Crown Court on Wednesday morning, after he stabbed Joshua Ingram with a knife in Seaford, East Sussex, on 10 September 2025.
The youth defendant was on trial alongside two other boys, aged 17 and 15, accused of conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm with intent in the lead up to the attack between 1 June and 11 September.
Jurors found all three of them not guilty of that charge.
The 15-year-old was found guilty of assisting an offender on the day of the murder, while the 17-year-old had already pleaded guilty to the same charge.
The prosecution had told jurors that the 16-year-old defendant was a “small-time drug dealer” who had supplied Joshua with drugs in the summer of 2025 but had not been paid for them.
Snapchat messages read out in court included the teenager now convicted of murder saying: “Josh will perish if I don’t get my f****** money, that’s a fact and he knows this.
“I’m ready to sit in a prison cell for 30 years over a £20 sheet.”
Prosecutor Rossano Scamardella KC said the 16-year-old went to Seaford on the day of the attack with a 19cm-long knife hidden in his tracksuit bottoms when he approached Joshua, who was from Newhaven, and stabbed him twice.
The prosecutor said: “Joshua stood no chance. The speed of the attack from behind gave him no chance to defend himself and the injury he sustained was so serious that he could not survive.
“He collapsed on the station platform and despite the very best attempts by members of the public and emergency workers, he died within an hour of being stabbed and even before he could be taken to hospital. All of this over a £20 cannabis debt.”
The 16-year-old had pleaded guilty to manslaughter and giving evidence during the trial he said it was a “tragic and reckless moment”.
The boy told jurors he viewed the 19cm knife as an “accessory” which he had bought on Telegram but “didn’t look at it for what it actually was” and never intended to kill or seriously harm Joshua.
The court had also heard in evidence the teenager had the knife used to kill Joshua since he was in year 9 and would “wave it around and playfully intimidate” with it at his house.
In the fatal attack in September, the blade travelled 15cm into Joshua’s body.
Giving evidence in the trial, Joshua’s friend who was with him when he got stabbed, said he saw the attacker “with no hesitation” taking the knife out and stabbing Joshua twice.
The friend said the defendant asked: “Is that Josh?” before he stepped ahead of him, pulled a knife from his right hip and “went for it twice” and ran.
He said: “He had no hesitation – he had a very still facial expression, he wasn’t pulling a face, he didn’t look like he had anger in him. He looked very calm and just normal, but then just did that. I don’t think Josh even knew what had happened.”
The friend described how Joshua walked a couple of steps and then “dropped to the floor” as he tried to call 999.
In a tribute released by the family of Joshua after his death, they described him as a “cheeky chappie who was loved by many” and who was taken “far too soon”.
The defendants are set to be sentenced on 2 October.
