A man stabbed a CBBC star to death, confessed to his girlfriend and then fled to Nigeria on his brother’s passport, a court heard.
Jeffrey Okafor of East Dulwich, south east London, is accused of murdering 19-year-old Carl Beatson-Asiedu in an incident outside a nightclub in the summer of 2009.
Sarah Whitehouse QC, prosecuting, told Woolwich Crown Court today that the stabbing took place after a crowd of young people spilled out of a club called Club Life near Vauxhall station.
Three people were specifically targeted, and Mr Beatson-Asiedu – who appeared in BBC children’s series M.I. High – was one of those people.
Two of them survived, but Ms Whitehouse said: “Carl Beatson wasn’t so fortunate.”
She said 24-year-old Okafor was part of a larger group which attacked a smaller group during the incident on August 1 2009.
As well as appearing in the CBBC show, Mr Beatson-Asiedu had also helped to form a music group called Kidnplay and was known as Charmz.
The musician, whose group was often booked to play at nightclubs in London and Leicester, performed with his friend at the club that night at an event called Summer Vibz.
PATalented DJ: Carl Beatson Asiedu was killed in 2009 after performing at a club, a court heard
After their performance, they stayed and had some drinks, but Ms Whitehouse told the jury that the victim had very little alcohol and said it does not appear that drink played any part in the violence that was to unfold when they left the club.
Mr Beatson-Asiedu was attacked after leaving the nightspot. Efforts to revive him were unsuccessful and he was pronounced dead at the scene, the court heard.
A pathologist concluded that the cause of death was a single stab wound to the front of the chest.
“After the attack, Jeffrey Okafor actually confessed to a girlfriend that he had stabbed Carl Beatson,” Ms Whitehouse said.
Within about an hour of the attack, he phoned a girlfriend and told her he had been involved in a “madness”, the court heard.
A few days later he allegedly told the same woman that he had stabbed Charmz in the stomach and gave her a pair of black gloves asking her to look after them.
Ms Whitehouse said those gloves were passed to police and DNA which may have come from the victim is on one of the gloves.
The defendant also phoned and asked the woman to put a t-shirt “into a plastic bag and put it into a bin in the road”, the jury heard.
Google StreetviewOn Trial: Jeffrey Okafor is accused of murder and is standing trial at Woolwich Crown Court
Later that day, when he returned home, Okafor seemed agitated and said “I’m going down” and “The Feds are going to be on to me”, Ms Whitehouse told the court.
On August 13 police went to his home address, planning to arrest him and to search the house for any evidence relating to the murder.
But Okafor was not at the address, having escaped as the police arrived, the jury heard.
Ms Whitehouse said he lay low for a time and then early on August 17 2009 he took a flight from Heathrow Airport to Lagos, using his brother’s passport, the court heard.
He was extradited from Nigeria in November 2014 and is now, five years later, standing trial. He denies murder.