Dad tells of his sorrow as schoolboy jailed for bus murder

A grieving father says he can “never forgive” as his family faces its first Christmas without their beloved son, days after the schoolboy who stabbed him to death was jailed.

Derek Boateng, 16, was knifed through the heart on a packed bus in Highbury by teenager Shawn Green back in April.

The killer, who was 15 at the time, boarded the 393 bus in Highbury New Park and pushed past horrified passengers, including a woman holding a baby, and thrust a kitchen knife into Derek’s chest.

Green, now 16, was sentenced to at least 12 years in prison at the Old Bailey on Friday as the judge lifted restrictions on revealing the murderer’s identity.

But speaking to the Gazette, Derek’s father Davis said the outcome of the trial was no cause for celebration.

He said: “It’s good that they have sentenced this boy, because he is a bad guy. He is a murderer.

Loss

“At the moment justice is done, but it is not something we can celebrate because we always think of our loss.There is nothing to replace our loss. The grief is too much. Other people can talk about it but for us it is Christmas coming up and normally we are four people. We sit round the table as four.

“But come this Christmas, we will be only three people. You can’t imagine how we feel, all because of this senseless killing.”

Derek, of Graham Road, Hackney, who was celebrating his 16th birthday, remained standing for a minute or so after the stabbing before collapsing “as though he had been hit by a train” on the street outside Highbury Grove School, where Green was a pupil and which Derek used to attend.

He was airlifted to hospital but died the following day, on April 24, after suffering massive internal bleeding.

Giving Green a sentence of detention during Her Majesty’s Pleasure with a minimum of 12 years, Judge Peter Thornton QC said: “You were just 15 years old and a schoolboy in uniform when you stabbed to death another boy on his 16th birthday.”

Judge Thornton said the motive for the attack was unclear – although Green had told the court he was angry after being attacked by Derek and some other boys six months earlier.

Mr Boateng said: “He claimed Derek punched him, but he can say anything he likes because Derek is not here to defend himself.

“He has been punished, but because he is underage they say they must punish him in a certain way.

“But he is old enough to know how to kill.

“He didn’t come to Derek for an ordinary fight, and he didn’t stab him in arm of leg but where he could kill him.

“He is a murderer. He has to be in prison for life, that is what I think.

‘‘He needs to be off the streets. We cannot ever forgive.”

Green, of Nightingale Crescent, Romford, had denied murder.