Man sentenced for murder after teenager died from injuries five years later

The victim suffered a catastrophic brain injury

Metropolitan Police Headquarters, New Scotland Yard, London.
Author: Katie HeathPublished 8th Dec 2024
Last updated 8th Dec 2024

Tyrese Osei-Kofi, 25, from East Dulwich, appeared at the Old Bailey on Friday, 6 December where he was sentenced to a minimum sentence of seven years and ten months in prison for the murder of Jamel Boyce.

On the evening of 14 October 2016, police attended Triangle Place, SW4, where they found a young man with stab wounds to the chest and leg.

Jamel was treated at the scene by the London Ambulance Service but he went into cardiac arrest before arriving in hospital, depriving his brain of oxygen for a critical 14 minutes due to the injury to his heart.

Doctors concluded he had been left in a 'vegetative state' and he was transferred to a specialist long-term care facility where he required round-the-clock nursing care.

Osei-Kofi was first interviewed after handing himself into police on 20 October 2016 following police appeals in which his father recognised him.

He was subsequently re-arrested two months later, and charged with attempted murder on 13 April 2017.

Osei-Kofi was convicted of grievous bodily harm and found not guilty of attempted murder following a trial at the Old Bailey in February 2018.

However, on 4 May 2018 he was jailed for ten years.

After five-and-a-half years of care, Jamel sadly died on Tuesday, 13 February 2022 at the age of 22.

A post-mortem examination held a few days later gave a cause of death as a penetrating injury to his chest.

Jamel's father, Patrick, said: “No amount of sentence can justify what he has done to me and my family, but I hope in time that somewhere in his heart he can find some remorse and ask whichever God he believes in for forgiveness.”

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