The Honeytrap Killer

Some parts of Britain are plagued with a wave of violent gang crime which is predominantly perpetrated by young black males.

The degree of violence involved, the casual indifference to other people's lives and the young ages of the victims and criminals make these cases frequently shocking when the details emerge.

The one I am about to describe is more so. It involves a young woman so callous, so devoid of normal human emotions and caught up in a world of casual thuggery that she had no idea how normal people relate to each other, and she deliberately lured a boy who loved her to his death. We're used to hearing about the young males who perpetrate these crimes and their over-inflated, very fragile egos - as usual, this a useful insight into the kind of society we've created and he penalty for rupturing those egos.

The victim was killed in a brutal attack by six gang members, and stripped of the power of his own gang friends and weapons, died on the pavement sobbing for his mummy.

Here is the full story:

Little did he know, but this was the chilling moment that lovestruck teenager Shakilus Townsend's fate was sealed.

Travelling by bus with the girl he loved, the 16-year-old was oblivious to the text message that was being sent to the violent thug who would stab him to death.

Samantha Joseph, 15, had lured Shakilus into following her to an alleyway where he was ambushed by a gang of six masked and hooded teenagers.

The youngster bled to death after being beaten with a baseball bat and stabbed six times in a 'relentless and merciless attack' led by a jealous love rival.

Shakilus and Joseph are captured on a bus' CCTV at the moment she texts McLean to seal her unsuspecting boyfriend's fate.

The Old Bailey heard how Shakilus was in love with the schoolgirl from Brockley, South-East London, whom he had met a month earlier.

He showered her with gifts and told his mother she was beautiful and he wanted to marry her.

But unbeknown to him, Joseph was also seeing Danny McLean, 18, a member of the street gang Shine My Nine.

McLean dumped Joseph when he found out she had cheated on him.

But, obsessed with the violent thug, she was prepared to do anything to get him back and they decided to set up her unwitting lover.

Joseph arranged to meet Shakilus wearing a see-through floral dress on July 3 last year.

The pair travelled by bus to a quiet culdesac in Thornton Heath, South London, where told him they would meet her cousin.

But CCTV footage shows how when Shakilus was not looking Joseph sent a text to McLean to seal her boyfriend's fate.

Yesterday, Joseph was convicted along with six members of the gang for Shakilus' murder.

Callous: This CCTV image shows Samantha Joseph and boyfriend Danny McLean walking away calmly after murdering Shakilus Townsend.

Laughing, she then delivered him to McLean and other gang members who began hitting him with their fists and baseball bats as she casually walked away.

McLean, wearing his gang's trademark orange bandana across his face, plunged the knife into his chest, raking it across his liver before twisting the blade.

The killers were later chased away by neighbours who found the teenager lying bleeding to death and sobbing, 'mummy, mummy, mummy...I don't want to die'.

The Old Bailey heard how Joseph, who can be named after Judge Richard Hawkins lifted an order banning her identification, was later seen walking off with McLean, carrying his hoodie and a cream-coloured handbag stained with his blood.

She confessed to friends that she had agreed to 'get Shak set'. She and McLean wiped the victim's Bebo account to get rid of any link between her and the dead boy.

But Shakilus's friends logged on to her account to condemn her. One wrote: 'REMEMBER U SET UP SHAK YOU BITCH. AND HE LUVED YOOOOH. YOU IZ ****ED!'

Yesterday Joseph, now 16, and McLean were convicted of murder.

Brothers Tyrell Ellis, 19, and Don-Carlos Ellis, 18, from Thornton Heath, were also convicted of the charge, together with Andrew Johnson-Haynes, a 19-year-old former public schoolboy from Croydon-Andre Thompson and Michael Akinfenwa, both 17, were also found guilty.

Don-Carlos Ellis, said to be the leader of the gang, was on bail for another suspected attack on a group of youths, and had been due to report to a police station on the day of the murder.

All the defendants were remanded into custody to be sentenced at a later date.

Here are the six killers:

Here is Joseph and the boy she lured to his death:

Notice a couple of factors which seem to crop up every time there is a murder in Britain; the offenders were known to the police as violent thugs, at least one of them was out on bail when the attack occurred.

This is a shocking case which sums up why parts of Britain are now lawless no-go areas, and just how feral some youth have become, wit no regard for anything, no ability to relate to the wider world.

UPDATE 13th July 2009:

It now emerges that two of the killers should have been arrested in connection with a previous violent knife crime, but police failed to trace them and logged details wrongly.