Matalan murderer jailed for life (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Matalan murderer jailed for life

1:09pm Monday 22nd March 2010 in

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A gang member who stabbed a store manager to death during a botched raid has been given a life sentence.

Kobina Essel, 19, of east London, was told he would have to serve a minimum of 20 years for murder.

Jamie Simpson, 33, was stabbed in the neck with a 10in kitchen knife during the hold-up at a Matalan store in Hackney, east London, in March 2008.

Knifeman Essel - known as "Aggro" - was found guilty of murder by an Old Bailey jury last month.

He was also given 11 years concurrent detention for conspiracy to rob.

Judge Martin Stephens said: "This case demonstrates in a vivid way the horrors of knife crime and the terrible consequences to the victim, his family and friends and to society as a whole."

He told Essel: "You went into this with your eyes open. You went in with a knife and you did not hesitate to use it."

Essel's accomplices, Anthony Maina, 20, of Canning Town, and Randy Osei-Owusu, 17, of Poplar, as well as robbery organiser Simeon Jumah, 25, of Manor Park, all east London, were convicted of manslaughter. The robbers had planned to steal between £20,000 and £30,000 in weekend takings from the store but fled empty-handed after the killing.

It emerged after the trial that, at the time of the raid, Maina had been on police bail for the fatal stabbing of a teenager during a mobile phone robbery five months earlier. He was later convicted of the murder of 17-year-old Rizwan Darbar and jailed for life with a minimum term of 14 years.

Maina was given indeterminate sentences for public protection with minimum terms of six years for manslaughter and five years for the robbery.