RYAN PRESTON has been found guilty of murdering Daniel Kennell in Coventry.
The jury returned its verdict this afternoon in an 11 to one majority.
Ryan Preston (27) of Hermitage Road, Coventry, will be sentenced tomorrow.
He had pleaded not guilty at Warwick Crown Court to the murder of 27-year-old Daniel Kennell during an incident in July last year.
With him in the dock was his mother Tracey Preston (54) of the same address, who was found not guilty of assisting an offender.
The jury heard Preston killed Mr Kennell by a single stab wound near the victim’s home in St Austell Road, Coventry.
They heard that, before Mr Kennell was killed, there had been a fight between the two men, who had been friends since school, in Caludon Castle park.
Mr Kennell then left to walk back to his home while Preston phoned his mother, who was out shopping at the time, asking her to bring his spare car key.
It was said that Mr Kennell, referred to as Danny, had taken his key, and when his mother arrived, Preston asked her to drive him to Danny’s home to retrieve the key.
When they arrived Preston, ‘in a rage,’ went to Danny’s home and began shouting for him to come out – but got no response because he had not got back, said prosecutor John Butterfield QC.
On getting no response, he threw something at one of the windows, then threw a paving slab at the windscreen of Mr Kennell’s car, which splintered but did not smash completely.
As he was doing that, Danny arrived back in the street and was confronted by Tracey Preston who demanded her son’s car key, which she told the jury during the trial Danny handed over.
“At some point after Daniel Kennell’s interaction with her, the two young men have seen each other there on St Austell’s Road and their argument immediately started up again. It quickly came to blows,” said Mr Butterfield.
“But Ryan Preston was not prepared at this point to have any sort of fair fight, perhaps mindful of how he’d been put on the ground earlier on back in the park.
“At this stage, the defendant was indeed armed with a knife, and he lashed out with that knife at least once.
“It was a single stab wound – but that was all that Ryan Preston needed. The wound was on the left lower chest. It was deep enough to penetrate Mr Kennell’s heart, as well as to cause damage internally to both the stomach and the spleen.”
Having fatally injured Mr Kennell, he returned to his mother’s car, got in and asked her to drive away, which she did.
