Knife attack went wrong as attacker stabbed to death by own gang

Four teenagers have been convicted of two murder charges – including one which saw a boy fatally stabbed by a member of his own gang.

A double murder investigation was launched on November 26, 2022 after two 16-year-olds – Charlie Bartolo and Kearne Solanke – were found with fatal stab injuries just one mile apart in Greenwich.

Initially, there was no obvious link between the two murders and a team of homicide detectives, led by Detective Chief Inspector Kate Blackburn, had to work quickly to identify the sequence of events.

Analysis of CCTV revealed that five men had arrived in a car, which was deliberately rammed into a motorbike being ridden by Charlie Bartolo in Sewell Road.

Three of them – the three who emerged from the passenger side, where Charlie was lying – attacked him as he lay on the ground. The CCTV shows that all three of them used large knives to stab and strike Charlie as he lay helpless on the floor.

The two who got out of the driver’s side did not physically participate in the violence – although the driver was armed with a knife.

The homicide detectives discovered that Solanke was one of the three who jumped out of the passenger side of the car and attacked Charlie. But during the melee of violence, one of his fellow attackers inadvertently stabbed him.

The CCTV footage shows that Solanke got back into the car with the rest of the group, and they all drove away. But, when the car reached Titmuss Avenue only a mile away, they abandoned the car and left Solanke to die on the pavement.

The prosecution case against all the defendants is that they were all signed up to a joint plan to find and attack someone in Abbey Wood as they were from a rival gang in Thamesmead.

Each of them played their own part in that attack – Hussain Bah driving them there, a 17-year-old driving them away, and the other three, including Solanke, carrying out the stabbing that all five of them intended.

Detective Chief Inspector Blackburn said: “My team of detectives worked relentlessly to identify the group’s movements across South east London on the day of the murders.

“Even though some of the CCTV did not pick up their faces, my officers worked incredibly hard to identify them via their clothing including trousers and footwear.

“I am glad that all four defendants have been found guilty. It was an unusual case in that the murder of Kearne Solanke, was obviously not what the group had set out to achieve.

“However, we successfully proved that the group, in the course of their joint attack, intended to cause death or at least really serious injury and, one of their members was, sadly, an inadvertent victim of that.”

Alagie Jobe and Hussain Bah, both 19, and from undisclosed addresses in South-east London, as well as a 16-year-old and an 18-year-old, were all convicted of two counts of murder on Friday after a trial at Inner London Crown Court.

Bah and Jobe will be sentenced at the same court on February 7. The other two defendants – who cannot be named because of their ages – will be sentenced on February 23.

Pictured top: Alagie Jobe (left) and Hussain Bah (Pictures: The Met)