At the conclusion of a four week trial at the Central Criminal Court, prosecuted by Jonathan Rees QC and Will Martin, the defendants Alex Lanning and Jonathan Camille were convicted, respectively, of the murder and manslaughter of Tashan Daniel.
Yesterday, the two men were sentenced. Lanning was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 25 years; Camille was sentenced to 6 ½ years imprisonment.
The case has generated significant media interest because of the shocking and senseless nature of the killing. Both the Prime Minister and Arsenal Football Club issued statements condemning the violence and offering their condolences to Tashan Daniel’s family.
On the afternoon of 24 September 2019 Tashan Daniel – a 20 year old talented athlete – was stabbed to death at Hillingdon Underground Station as he made his way to watch an Arsenal match with a friend. Lanning – secretly armed with a fearsome military knife designed for NATO pilots – deliberately engineered a fight with Tashan Daniel and his friend. He accused them of looking at him ‘the wrong way’ across the train tracks.
Having started the fight, and backed up by his accomplice Camille, Lanning took out the knife and stabbed Tashan Daniel through the heart. Lanning and Camille then fled the scene. As Lanning ran away, he was seen by two witnesses to be laughing. The men hid the knife and their blood stained clothes on a nearby housing estate, and disguised themselves with clothes stolen from a washing line. They managed to evade police for a further ten days.
The Daniel family have since become tireless anti-knife crime campaigners.
A short BBC documentary on the case, can be found here.
National Media Links: BBC News, Evening Standard and The Daily Mail.
SUMMARY In 2017 a 24-year-old woman, Louella Fletcher Michie, died at the Bestival Music Festival,…
Camilla Fayed was declared not guilty of robbery after the prosecution offered no evidence. Camilla…
