Leoandro Osemeke

Leoandro Osemeke was stabbed at a party in Peckham, London.

A 15-year-old boy was charged with his murder but was acquitted after he claimed that he had acted in self-defence. He had stabbed him twice saying that he thought that Leoandro Osemeke was about to stab him.

When the judge summed up he told the jury that the question was whether the 15-year-old boy had acted to defend himself with 'reasonable force'. He said, 'These two blows were delivered with force and into the chest area. One of them pierced his heart. The 15-year-old boy accepts that he stabbed Showkey. Your task will be to decide whether in doing so he was acting in a situation in which it was or may have been necessary for him to defend himself, and if so whether he only used reasonable force in doing so'. The jury then acquitted him of both murder and manslaughter.

Leoandro Osemeke was a rapper and was also known as Showkey.

At the time of his murder he had been due to be a witness at the murder trial of Myron Yarde who was killed in New Cross on 3 April 2016. However, his murder was not said to have been related to that.

Leoandro Osemeke had gone to the party in Colegrove Road with his brother and two friends and was stabbed within 25 seconds of walking in. He was stabbed twice, including once through the heart.

The party was attended by about 200 people and had been organised by a Year 10 girl (16 years old) through social media. It was said that the the invite went viral and that the party had been out of control and that neighbours had already called the police because of the noise disturbance as it spilled out into other people’s driveways.

It was said that as Leoandro Osemeke walked into the hallway of the house which had about 50 to 60 teenagers in it that the 15-year-old boy lunged at him with a Rambo style knife and stabbed him twice.

At the trial it was heard that immediately after stabbing Leoandro Osemeke , the 15-year-old boy told onlookers, 'I did it, I did it'. The 15-year-old boy said that he then heard someone telling him to 'duck out' and so he fled the party, climbing over a garden fence on his way.

Leoandro Osemeke was said to have been laughing and smiling as he arrived at the house.

After being stabbed Leoandro Osemeke managed to stagger out of the house before he collapsed in Colegrove Road.

As he lay bleeding in the street some of the partygoers filmed him and later posted the footage on the social media platform Snapchat which was said to have then been watched by a large number of people.

Paramedics soon arrived and carried out heart surgery at the scene, but Leoandro Osemeke was declared dead at 7.19pm.

At the trial, the 15-year-old boy said that there was bad blood between him and Leoandro Osemeke and that as soon as Leoandro Osemeke came into the hallway he said to him 'Yeah', implying that he was brave coming to the party, and said that he could see that he had a knife, saying that it was 'big and black'. He said, 'I walked from the living room into the hallway and Showkey was standing there. When Showkey saw me he said ‘yeah’. I could see he had a knife, it was big and black. He removed it from its sheath and was holding it diagonally towards me. I wasn't focused on anything else except his knife, I thought he was going to kill me. There were lots of other people in the hallway. I ran into the kitchen so I could grab a knife and arm myself. I found a kitchen knife and went towards him holding it above my head. I didn't feel the knife contact Showkey's body when I stabbed him. He stumbled backwards towards the door, it all happened in about 10 seconds. I was very scared and my hope was that he would go away and that I wouldn't have to do anything with the knife. It was never my intention to go to a party and do something like this. After, I ran towards the back garden, I was just shocked and wasn't thinking about anything. I ran to my aunt's house, I must have dropped the knife. I don't know if I threw it or if it fell out of my pocket. I couldn't sleep the night after the incident'.

He said that he stabbed Leoandro Osemeke before he could stab him.

A witness at the party said they saw the 15-year-old boy take a Rambo-knife from his waistband and stab Leoandro Osemeke. He also said, 'I didn’t intend to kill him or cause him serious harm, I just wanted him to go away, I didn’t want anything bad to happen. I thought he was going to stab me'.

A teenage girl who saw the stabbing said, 'I saw drops of blood everywhere. People were recording him for Snapchat. His friends were screaming and crying, begging him to stay alive. His eyes kept going to the back of his head. I knew that he was dead. His chest wasn’t moving, and he looked cold'.

Another witness said, 'I saw the person who was getting targeted. I saw an arm moving forward. I saw something going towards the person, but I wasn’t sure what it was, something like a black glove. That’s when the person backed out. When the person was outside he pointed out he got stabbed'.

The court heard that there had been trouble between Leoandro Osemeke and the 15-year-old boy who told the court that Leoandro Osemeke had on a previous occasion charged at him with a knife.

The court was told that Leoandro Osemeke  was a member of the 814 gang which was based in the SE14 postcode area and sold drugs. The 15-year-old boy denied that he was a member of a rival gang.

Leoandro Osemeke had written rap songs which included lyrics about men 'wishing death' upon him. One of his songs, 'Taking My Friends' was played to the court at the trial. It had received over 200,000 views on YouTube and included the lyrics, 'Oh Lord, oh Lord, oh Lord you're taking my friends, and many men wish death upon me in most of my ends, Lord defend me, you took M from me more, more than a friend to me, you took Slitz away, more than a memory. I can believe that your gone, like I remember banter on the bus, when you got new creps, so you walked with and lean and a bop, the whole ends miss you, but the mandems got a couple of issues, so bro if you can hear me now, intervene'.

Leoandro Osemeke had just turned 16 a week before he was stabbed.