Guilty, Louis Vuitton model who killed rival over lover
A LoUIS Vuitton model who stabbed a rival to death because he wanted to be ‘the country’s most famous black model’ was facing life in prison yesterday.
George Koh, 24, was ‘obsessed’ with fellow fashion model Harry Uzoka, 25, copying his look and mimicking his Instagram poses because he was jealous of the rising star.
Mr Uzoka – dubbed ‘Britain’s most famous black [male] model’ after winning lucrative contracts with the likes of Mercedes and Zara – warned Koh to stop imitating him in heated social media exchanges. But when Koh boasted he had slept with Mr Uzoka’s girlfriend, catwalk star ruby Campbell, the pair agreed to settle their rivalry ‘face to face’.
When they squared up near his home in Shepherd’s Bush, west London, on January 11, Mr Uzoka had armed himself with a dumbbell and recruited his flatmate, Adrian Harper, as back-up.
But Koh was waiting with a knife in each hand accompanied by his friends, burly personal trainer Jonathan okigbo and Merse Dikanda, wielding a machete.
They cornered the victim who was knifed in the heart three times during a frenzied two-minute attack.
The model died outside his home despite efforts to save him.
Yesterday Koh was found guilty of murder following a four-week trial at the old Bailey. His accomplice Dikanda, 24, was also convicted of murder and okigbo, 24, was found guilty of manslaughter.
richard Horwell QC, prosecuting, said: ‘Harry Uzoka was a well-known and successful model with a bright future ahead of him. This celebrity status is relevant because it is that part of his life that brought him into contact with George Koh. Koh was also a model, but not as successful as Uzoka, they were occupational acquaintances but certainly not friends.
‘Koh had attempted to copy Uzoka and some said that they looked alike.’
He told jurors Koh ‘plainly had an obsession with Harry Uzoka, he even suggested to one witness that they were at a similar level in the modelling world – and that was not true.’
Mr Horwell told Koh during the case: ‘ You wanted to become Harry Uzoka. You wanted to be as famous as him.’
The pair first crossed paths at a fashion show in 2015 where Harry gave a group of younger models, including Koh, tips on how to walk a catwalk.
When they met again at an Urban outfitters shoot, Mr Uzoka agreed to look through Koh’s portfolio and recommended he should ‘go to a better agency’. They followed each other on Instagram and occasionally bumped into each other in London or paris.
Mr Uzoka was signed to premier Model Management and had appeared in campaigns for GQ. He had recently landed a film role and counted top British models such as Storm’s Jourdan Dunn among his friends. Koh was on the books of IMG Models, but had not enjoyed the same success. Mr Uzoka became ‘annoyed’ that his ‘less successful’ lookalike was trying to mimic him and make contact with his friends through social media. After one photoshoot together, Mr Uzoka asked Koh: ‘Why is your Instagram copying my Instagram?’ The row intensified when Koh bragged to parisbased model Annecetta Lafon that he had sex with Mr Uzoka’s girlfriend. During his trial Koh denied murder, claiming he had never boasted about sleeping with Miss Campbell and saying he carried knives only for selfdefence. He sobbed in the witness box, telling jurors: ‘All I was doing was defending myself. In the course of it I killed Harry and I’m sorry for that.’ But he was captured on CCTV chasing after his victim and wiping blood from the blade on his jeans after the attack. Yesterday Koh’s family hailed him as a ‘role model’, who left ‘a positive and irreplaceable mark on so many’. His killers were remanded in custody until sentencing next month.
‘You wanted to be as famous as him’