East London News A Force for the community…
DANIEL FREDERICK, 34, was an innocent man who lived in Hackney. His girlfriend was pregnant, and on 8th January this year he went to the hospital with her before heading home to meet up with a friend – the two were going to play computer games. That unborn child was never going to meet its father.
As Daniel stood in Shakespeare Walk, N16, waiting to meet his friend – in a busy street, with people, including children, coming and going – a gang of five young men rushed towards him, surrounded him, began kicking and punching him… and stabbed him. One of those passers-by confronted the attackers, and they ran off. That member of the public banged on the window of a nearby flat to get some help. But it was too late.
The London Ambulance Service did their best and they got Daniel to hospital, but he died a few hours later. A post mortem later established that a stab wound to his left lung – one of seven stab wounds – had killed him. He had no injuries that would have come from defending himself.
Innocent murder victim Daniel Frederick
Metropolitan Police detectives conducted an investigation which eventually nailed the killers. They used local CCTV footage and mobile phone data and forensic science. They found DNA at the site which was linked to two of the killers. As police closed in, they found that nearly all the killers had tried to escape. One had flown to Oslo the day after the murder, while another had taken a ferry to France and then gone on to Turkey. Two others were hiding in the home counties.
Eventually, the police tracked all five teenagers involved in the killing down, arrested them and charged them. One pleaded guilty to murder. Four were put on trial at the Old Bailey. They were all sentenced at the Old Bailey last month. Most of them are still under 18 and cannot be named.
•A 16-year-old male from Hackney who had pleaded guilty to murder before the trial was sentenced to ten years in prison.
•The jury unanimously found Kacper Karasinski, 18, of Mount Pleasant Lane, Hackney, guilty of murder. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
•The jury unanimously found a 17-year-old male from Ilford guilty of murder He was sentenced to 17 years in prison.
•The jury unanimously found Yigiter Gok, 18, of Sanford Walk, N16 not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter by a majority jury (11-1). He was sentenced to nine years in prison.
•The jury unanimously found a 17-year-old male from Hackney not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter by a majority jury (11-1). He was sentenced to eight years in prison.
•Read more about this story:
Daniel Frederick: fifth man in court
•Read more crime stories:
Life for Hackney Towpath Walk murderer
Mobile phone theft moped gang caught out
