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Randy Skuse

Age: 27

Sex: male

Date: 23 Nov 2019

Place: Blakeney Tower, Buckle Street, Whitechapel, London

Randy Skuse was stabbed at a party at a flat on the 14th floor of Blakeney Tower, Buckle Street, Whitechapel on 23 November 2019.

A 27-year-old man was tried for his murder but acquitted in September 2020.  He had been charged with murder and three counts of wounding with intent but was cleared on all counts.

The party had been for a childhood friend of Randy Skuse, a woman that was turning 25. It was said that it wasn't a big party and that there had only been 25 people invited.

Randy Skuse, who had worked at the Britvic factory in Beckton for the previous six years, had finished work at 10pm and went home to get ready and got a lift to the party in a friend's car at about midnight and had planned to sleep over at the flat.

It was heard that it was on the following morning that a fight broke out during which Randy Skuse was stabbed. Three other people also suffered knife wounds.

The police were called out to the address at 8.48am on Saturday 23 November 2019. Randy Skuse was pronounced dead at the scene at 9.38am.

His post-mortem gave his cause of death as a single 7cm stab wound.

Seven men were arrested on suspicion of murder and attempted murder shortly after the murder.

They were:

  1. 24-year-old man.
  2. 25-year-old man.
  3. 27-year-old man.
  4. 29-year-old man.
  5. 23-year-old man.
  6. 24-year-old man.
  7. 26-year-old man, who was also stabbed and taken to hospital.

Four of the men were later released with no further action.

At the trial it was claimed that the man tried had stabbed Randy Skuse and others after he became annoyed during an argument. The argument was said to have started at 8.15am in a bedroom at the flat and that the man had then stabbed another man in the side and that the argument had then moved into the living area of the flat. Several people were said to have been telling the man to 'put the knife down', but the man was alleged to have said, 'He pissed me off, he pissed me off'.

It was said that people were trying to calm the situation down and to take the knife away from him but that the man would not allow that. Witnesses said that the man had been shouting and stabbing out at anyone who went near him.

The court was told that it was during that situation that Randy Skuse was stabbed in the chest and another person stabbed in the left arm, with the knife passing through his arm and piercing the skin on his chest.

The prosecution said, 'What is clear is that all present were in severe danger of being badly injured by the knife as it was wielded deliberately by the defendant'.

The court heard that the man then stabbed a fourth man in the arm through a gap in a door and then fled from the flat with the knife still in his hand off towards Commercial Road.

However, the man was cleared of all the charges at a trial at the Old Bailey in September 2020.


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