A teenager who stabbed to death a youth worker who told him to stop peddling drugs “will kill again”, the father of his victim warned today.
The 17-year-old boy — who has an “unhealthy fascination with knives” — faces jail today for the manslaughter of Omid Saidy, 20, near Parsons Green Tube station in Fulham last October.
Instagram pictures of the teenager, released by the CPS to the Standard, show him holding a samurai sword and grinning as he poses with a hunting knife. His face is pixelated because his identity is protected by a court order.
One of the photos, believed to have been put online less than three weeks before the fatal stabbing, was captioned, “Always moving aggy wen I’m pokin”.
Prosecutors told the Old Bailey this was a boast by the teenager that he was aggressive when armed with a knife.
Today, Mr Saidy’s father, Majid Saidy, called for mandatory five-year sentences for anyone caught carrying knives on the streets, and said the Instagram posts show his son’s killer is a danger to the public. “When you look at him, you see he’s a killer. It doesn’t matter to him — you let him out tomorrow, he will kill again,” he said.
“Kids today say they carry a knife because they’re scared but I don’t buy it anymore — they’re out there to make a name for themselves with a knife.”
Mr Saidy also claims his son was trying to disarm the drug dealers when he was knifed.
“He saw them as youths he works with - he didn’t want them to be running around with knives in Parsons Green of all places,” he said. “He wanted to disarm them and talk, finish it out like that.”
When asked if he wished his son hadn’t chased his killers, the father of three said: “I do wish that. But I’m old fashioned - how I brought up my children was if someone needs help or is in trouble, you do something, you don’t walk away. But now I’ve changed my views - we’re afraid we might get stabbed, just like my son did.
“If I never told my son not to worry about what is outside, maybe he’d still be here now.”
Before his death, the youngster’s friends Ben and Dylan planned to launch a clothing company together. Now Mr Saidy and his wife Virginia are planning to launch it in memory of their son.
Mr Saidy added: “We want him to be remembered for the work he’s done with young people, the love he showed his family, his mum he idolised, his community he loved and the good relationships he had with his family, friends and community. Everyone had nothing but positive things to say about him.
“He was a shining, golden diamond who wanted to become a leader in his field of working with the youths. The house was so loud before and now it’s silent.”
The convicted teenager was cleared by a jury last month of murdering Mr Saidy but found guilty of his manslaughter.
It can now be revealed that jurors were not shown the pictures during the trial, or told about the boy’s criminal past which includes brandishing a machete during a 2016 robbery, carrying a lock knife in his sock, and taking a weapon to school when he was 12.
Judge Anne Molyneux QC admitted his criminal history was “troubling” and the pictures “demonstrate an unhealthy fascination with knives”, but ruled the evidence was not relevant to the specific issues the jury were considering.
Mr Saidy died on October 16 after challenging the killer and his friend, Shafiq Smith, 19, who were selling drugs outside his family home. He enlisted his friend Oluwafemi Omotosho to help chase the two masked teenagers away. The incident culminated in a knife fight when all four participants were armed. Mr Omotosho, who crashed his moped while trying to protect his friend, was stabbed in the chest by Smith.
Judge Molyneux will sentence the killer today and rule on an application by prosecutors and the media to name him to deter knife crime.
Smith, of Wandsworth, who was cleared of murder but convicted of wounding with intent on Mr Omotosho, was also due to be sentenced today.
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