14-year-old jailed for manslaughter

A 14-year-old girl ordered her boyfriend to stab a schoolboy footballer after she got into a row with him because she had walked across the middle of a makeshift pitch at his estate.

Cherelle McKenzie-Jackson was detained for eight years on Friday for telephoning her boyfriend and ordering him to come and stab 15-year-old Junior Nkwelle.

Marc Tulloch, 17, was also given 10 years behind bars for the killing on the Loughborough Estate, in Brixton, south London.

The defendants were named for the first time at the Old Bailey as Judge Richard Hone lifted an order banning their identification in the hope that their sentencing would be a deterrent to knife crime.

McKenzie-Jackson sat scowling in the dock and sucked her teeth loudly as she was sentenced.

Judge Hone told her that it was only her age which saved her from being detained for as long as Tulloch.

He told her, “You seem physically and behaviourally older than your biological age. You made threats after your argument with Junior Nkwelle that was described as “going ballistic”.’

He added that he had decided to publicly name the teenagers.

He said, “I bear in mind the public interest in the reduction of knife, rightly regarded as the scourge of our cities. These are – let nobody ignore – very grave offences.”

The pair were found guilty of manslaughter but cleared of murder after the jury found they had not intended for the victim to be seriously harmed.