FOOTIE KID KILLER IS CAGED FOR 9 YEARS
Boy, 17, stabbed amateur player in street clash
A BOY of 17 was detained for nine years yesterday for stabbing a young footballer to death.
A court heard the killer was walking hand-in-hand with a girl in Baillieston, Glasgow, on June 17 last year when victim Luke Wallace and another youth confronted him.
The other boy had a piece of wood in his hand.
Luke, who played for Drumchapel FC, had a lump of concrete. The court heard he threw it at the accused, who chased him and stabbed him in the groin with a lockback knife.
The blow cut Luke’s femoral artery and he died eight days later. The accused ran away covered in his victim’s blood.
The boy was accused of murder but the Crown dropped the charge mid-trial and replaced it with the lesser offence of culpable homicide.
He claimed self-defence. He said the knife was Luke’s and he found it lying on a traffic island, and said he only “poked” Luke with it to try to get away.
Luke’s mother Angela told the court: “I know 100 per cent he would never carry a knife.”
The jury convicted the accused of culpable homicide, knife possession and trying to defeat justice by washing his bloody clothes.
Sentencing at the High Court in Glasgow, Lord Woolman said the boy, who can’t be named, had been convicted of having a knife. But he added: “You were attacked first and only inflicted one stab wound.”
Defence QC Gordon Jackson said his client, a first offender with a troubled background, had struck a single blow with “terrible consequences” after “quite severe provocation”.
Angela said last night that nine years was not long for taking a life, but added: “We didn’t expect it to be as much.”
She accused the killer of having no remorse and showing “real lack of respect” at the trial.
Angela said she moved house after the attack because she was afraid to let her other children outside. She called for greater police search powers to tackle knife crime.