Student jailed 10 years for manslaughter after stabbing over fake Rolex in Leicester

Harper Dennis, 19, stabbed former friend Khaleed Oladipo five times near De Montfort University in a dispute over a counterfeit watch and a £6,000 debt.

De Montfort University stabbing: student sentenced over fake Rolex debt killing

A 19-year-old student has been jailed for 10 years after stabbing a former friend five times in the chest near De Montfort University in Leicester, following a dispute rooted in a fake Rolex watch and a £6,000 scam debt. The Independent reports that Harper Dennis was convicted of manslaughter at Leicester Crown Court on Tuesday, after a two-week trial in which a jury cleared him of murder.

The victim, 20-year-old Khaleed Oladipo, was stabbed on Oxford Street, close to the university's Innovation Centre, on the evening of 3 February this year. The attack was captured on dashcam footage. Dennis, of North Road, West Drayton, in west London, was also found guilty of possessing an offensive weapon and failing to disclose the PIN to his mobile phone.

A debt, a scam, and a counterfeit watch

Prosecutor Jane Osborne KC told the court that Dennis and Oladipo had originally met through online video gaming. Dennis admitted in evidence that he had handed Oladipo £6,000 of his own savings to fund what was described as a scheme to defraud people. When that money was not repaid, Oladipo gave Dennis a Rolex watch to sell in order to recoup the funds. Dennis later discovered the watch was a fake, after taking it to jewellers in Hatton Garden.

"I went to the jewellery shop," Dennis told the jury. "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."

Sentencing Dennis, Judge Timothy Spencer KC said he had harboured a "seething resentment" towards Oladipo. "The background is murky," the judge observed. "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."

Five stab wounds and a covered face

Judge Spencer told Dennis that the manner of the attack removed any claim to impulse or accident. "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 said.

The judge noted that Dennis had covered his face immediately before the assault, indicating premeditation. "You knew you had something serious in mind," Spencer said. "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."

At the moment of the stabbing, Oladipo was on the phone to his girlfriend, who overheard him ask: "Why did you come up to me and stab me?" After inflicting the wounds, Dennis fled the scene and passed a bag containing his clothing to his flatmate. He was arrested later that night at his student accommodation on suspicion of murder.

Dennis claimed self-defence

During his testimony, Dennis insisted he had acted in self-defence, saying he feared for his life when Oladipo approached him carrying a knife. He told the court he did not realise he had inflicted fatal wounds and was "shocked" when police came to arrest him.

Judge Spencer addressed that account directly. "You were the smaller of the two, much more lightly built, but you were the one with the weapon," he said. "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."

In the months before the stabbing, Dennis had phoned Oladipo's girlfriend, Shekeizah Fowler-Palmer, on Christmas Day to claim her partner was a "bad guy". Dennis also acknowledged threatening to expose Oladipo online as someone who "can't be trusted" and a "bad businessman". He admitted suffering from a gambling addiction, though he had no previous criminal record.

'Her light and joy — hollowed out'

A victim impact statement from Oladipo's sister, Precious Oladipo, was read to the court by Ms Osborne ahead of sentencing. It described how their mother had withdrawn from normal life, unable to cope with grief.

"The loss of a child is brain-altering," Precious Oladipo wrote. "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."

The statement continued: "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."

Mitigation: remorse and prospects

Mitigating counsel Tim Forte KC, representing Dennis, described the stabbing as "fleeting, short, unpremeditated, but horrendously tragic." He told the court his client showed genuine remorse and possessed a positive character. Forte argued Dennis had the intellect to make use of his time in custody and could emerge with additional qualifications.

Judge Spencer, noting that both young men had their "lives ahead of them", handed down the 10-year sentence for manslaughter.

Source: The Independent