[ad_1]
A judge has sentenced a teenager to life in prison for murdering a 14-year-old boy in London.
On Tuesday, Marquez Walker, 17, became the first boy to be televised in England and Wales after a successful legal challenge by multiple media outlets with the support of the victim’s parents.
Old Bailey is said to have been stabbed seven times while lying on the ground in West Croydon, south London, on 18 November 2021.
Judge Sarah Munroe said the murder was a “senseless attack” incomprehensible to any reasonable adult, and said, “Tragically, there have been no murders involving teenagers since then. It’s happening more and more,” he said.
She sentenced Walker to a minimum of 19 years in custody and imposed a concurrent sentence for attacking a fellow inmate that left him with a brain injury.
Cools was the youngest victim of a knife crime in 2021, and his parents, Julius Cools and Lorraine Dudek, said they “fully support the widest possible coverage”.
Walker, who was 16 at the time of the murder, was out on bail on two counts of knife possession.
In February 2022, Walker’s third charge of knife possession was dropped after he was found to have been a “victim of modern slavery” because of his involvement in the Wewyn Garden City drug lordship. I was.
In January, the night before his trial, Walker pleaded guilty to murder and knife possession. He also pleaded guilty to willfully causing serious physical harm after attacking a fellow inmate during remand at the Feltham Youth Offenders Facility in West London in July 2022. .
Prosecutor Caroline Carberry, KC, said Walker and his associates were involved in an altercation between Cooles and his brother, Delaney, in the center of West Croydon.
CCTV footage showed the scuffle and Walker running over to Cooles with a large knife, stabbing him to the ground repeatedly.
Carberry said Walker returned to his home in Bromley and checked his Snapchat account, where several friends advised him to ditch his phone, clothes and sneakers and turn around.
She said police eventually arrested him “accidentally” at his South Norwood apartment after searching for him for nearly six weeks.
Found hiding behind a bed, Walker gave the officer a fake name, but eventually admitted who he was and was arrested and charged with murder.
While he was being remanded at the Young Criminals Facility in Feltham, he wrote lyrics to a drill song that referred to stabbing someone to the ground.
Attacked a fellow inmate while on remand
The court was also said that in July 2022, Walker and four other men attacked a fellow inmate, claiming he was a “snitch.”
Carberry told the court that all five started kicking and stomping on the man after Walker knocked him to the floor.
Two prison guards separated them from the victim who was taken to the hospital unconscious. He suffered a brain hemorrhage and was in a “life-threatening and life-altering” condition.
Victims have suffered permanent brain damage, including cognitive impairment, and will require long-term care.
However, Munroe said Walker was a “complex and vulnerable young man” who had experienced many traumas during his childhood, including the murder of his father and cousin.
She told him, “Despite being young, you pose a grave risk to the public…and you may never be safely released.”
Last week, the PA, The Times of London, The Sun and the Daily Mail filed a joint petition to lift a court order barring Walker’s identification.
A separate bid was made for permission to film Walker’s sentence and broadcast the footage online.
Carberry said making the verdict public could act as a “very powerful deterrent.”
Munro lifted legal restrictions on Walker’s naming and agreed to a live broadcast.
To justify her decision, Munro said: Defendant’s approaching 18th birthday…all of this outweighs the minimal impact on Defendant’s welfare. ”
Tuesday’s sentencing hearing was temporarily interrupted after a disturbance broke out in a public gallery and a young woman was thrown out. She started screaming at a man she believed to be Delaney, Cools’ brother, and she said: you started the fight It’s your responsibility! “
PA Media contributed to this report.
[ad_2]