Student who stabbed friend near university campus in Leicester has been jailed
Harper Dennis attacked Khaleed Oladipo - near De Montfort University in February
A student who stabbed his former friend through the heart near a university campus after they fell out over a fake Rolex watch has been sentenced to 10 years in custody after being found guilty of manslaughter.
Harper Dennis, 19, plunged a knife five times into the chest of Khaleed Oladipo, 20, near De Montfort University in Leicester on the evening of February 3 this year.
A jury at Leicester Crown Court found Dennis, of North Road in West Drayton, London, not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter, having an offensive weapon and failing to provide the Pin to his phone on Tuesday after a two-week trial.
Prosecutor Jane Osborne KC told the jury Dennis killed Mr Oladipo, who he made friends with through online gaming, because of a “perceived debt”.
The defendant said he gave Mr Oladipo £6,000 of savings to make money by scamming people and when he did not receive his money back, the victim gave him a Rolex watch to sell, but Dennis later found out it was fake.
Mr Oladipo and Dennis were both in Oxford Street near De Montfort University’s Innovation Centre when the stabbing, which was captured on dashcam footage, happened.
Judge Timothy Spencer KC told Dennis, who wore a dark suit in the dock, he had developed a “seething resentment” towards the victim.
He said: “You took a knife to the fight, you used it, this was not a one-off thrust of the knife but five separate applications and it should have been obvious to you this carried a high risk of serious harm.”
He added: “The background is murky. You and Khaleed were certainly known to each other. You were probably at times pretty friendly.
“The moral high ground is simply not open to you. You have painted yourself as wronged, but the reality is the financial transactions in this case were all to do with scams.
“This money was designed to fund criminal activity. The dispute between the two of you was further fuelled by him providing a Rolex watch which you viewed as some part compensation for your losses, that turned out to be fake and that did not assuage your bitterness.”
The judge said both Dennis and Mr Oladipo had their “lives ahead of you”.
He said: “You had taken a knife to the struggle, a knife to the fight. How exactly you knew he would be where he was on Oxford Street is unclear.
“The process of trying to determine that has never been assisted by you. You knew where he was and where he was to be found and that is why you had taken a knife with you.
“You were the smaller of the two, much more lightly built, but you were the one with the weapon and it is right to note that on the face of it, he seemed to get the better of you.
“That was in his desperation to save his life as he knew you had the knife and he was trying to prevent you from using it.
“If that was his purpose, he did not succeed because you were able to stab him and stab him effectively five times, including that fatal stab wound to the chest.
“This is not a case of a single desperate stab wound – this is one of five thrusts of the knife. You knew you had something serious in mind because you covered your face immediately before.”
In a victim impact statement read to the court by Ms Osborne before Dennis was sentenced, Mr Oladipo’s sister Precious Oladipo said their mother has become withdrawn because she is “so unwell with grief”.
She said: “The loss of a child is brain-altering. He was, in every sense, her light and joy and losing him has hollowed her out.
“She cries every single day, including at her workplace, the hospital. She mumbles that she sent Khaleed off to university, as she always did after the holidays, and he simply never came home.”
She added: “The home we shared that was once full of laughter is now largely silent.
“Khaleed will not graduate, he will not see his 21st birthday which he had been so looking forward to. Every future milestone will now be marked by his absence instead of his presence.
“We are bereft, there is no joy or happiness in our home. We move through life monotonously.
“No-one is okay.”
The trial heard that after the fatal attack, Dennis left the scene and gave a bag of clothes to his flatmate.
Mr Oladipo was on the phone with his girlfriend at the time of the attack, and she heard him say “Why did you come up to me and stab me?”.
Dennis made two calls to Mr Oladipo’s girlfriend Shekeizah Fowler-Palmer on Christmas Day last year and said her boyfriend was a “bad guy”.
In his evidence, Dennis told the court he feared for his life and was acting in self-defence when Mr Oladipo approached him with a knife.
He said he did not know he had stabbed Mr Oladipo during their fight and he was “shocked” when he was arrested on suspicion of murder at his accommodation later that evening.
Of the fake Rolex, Dennis told the jury: “I went to Hatton Garden to sell the watch. I went to the jewellery shop. Two jewellers looked at the watch, they examined it and realised it was fake.
“It made me feel a bit annoyed, bit kind of disappointed in Khaleed that he let me down.”
Dennis, who told the court he had a gambling addiction, said he threatened to expose Mr Oladipo online as someone who “can’t be trusted” and a “bad businessman”.
Defending Dennis, who has no previous convictions, Tim Forte KC said the fatal incident was “fleeting, short, unpremeditated, but horrendously tragic”.
He said Dennis had a “positive” character and had shown remorse for his actions.
He said: “He does have some prospects, he is a young man, he will go inside for a number of years, but he is not so without talent or intellect, he can gain some additional qualifications.
“He will come out as someone who can apply his mind and skills to work and training and education.
“This is the first and only transgression and one hopes that his age demonstrates there is a lack of maturity, a lack of consideration of impact.
“There is no cliff face at the age of 18. All too often it is teenagers of his age who find themselves before the courts in connection with a knife-wielding catastrophe.”
The judge told Dennis: “You have never assisted this investigation, you have never even tried to shed light fully on what was going on here.
“From the start you have steadfastly refused to give your Pin number to your phone which would have given access to probably really important digital information.”
He said: “Your claims of genuine remorse have a very hollow ring. Someone who is truly remorseful would have been much more forthcoming.
“I am prepared to accept there is an element of remorse. I think you have matured to the realisation that this was a wholly unnecessary loss of life.”
Speaking before the verdict, Detective Inspector Lorna Granville, from the East Midlands Special Operations Unit Major Crime Team, said: “It’s a shocking set of circumstances and quite rightly, and expectedly, creates a huge impact on the student community.
“This is not deep entrenched criminality. What it appears is two young men with their lives ahead of them have had a falling out and one has reacted, I would say, completely disproportionately and unnecessarily to exact some retribution”.
Of Mr Oladipo’s family, she said: “They are grieving. They are slowly realising that potentially this was over a silly dispute and they have to live with the loss of that for eternity and they are struggling to come to terms with that.”