Accused bragged in Snapchat rant of fatally stabbing Manny in the bottom in Coventry garden, jury hears - The Coventry Observer

Accused bragged in Snapchat rant of fatally stabbing Manny in the bottom in Coventry garden, jury hears

Coventry Editorial 5th Dec, 2019   0

A jury has watched a recording of the moment one of Coventry man Emmanuel Lukenga’s alleged killers is said to have sent a disguised ‘selfie’ boasting about the fatal stabbing.

And the jury at Warwick Crown Court was also played footage from a CCTV camera said to show another defendant publicly demonstrating how 21-year-old Emmanuel was pursued and knifed.

The two young men on the recordings and two others are said to have hunted down members of a rival group which included Emmanuel, known as Manny, before fatally stabbing him.

Enroy Ruddock, is said to have stabbed Manny to the area of his buttocks, severing a major artery which led to him bleeding to death, as he tried to climb a garden fence to escape.




Ruddock (19) of Melbourne Road, Coventry; Matthew Brankin (19) of Thimbler Road, Canley; Kyle Kinchen (18) of John Rous Avenue, Coventry, and Bradley Richardson (23) of Prior Deram Walk, Canley, have all pleaded not guilty to Mr Lukenga’s murder.

Also in the dock is Rilee Madden (19) of Gerard Avenue, Canley, who denies handling a stolen motorbike said to have been used in the incident, and perverting the course of justice by helping to destroy evidence afterwards.


The jury has heard of a running feud between two groups of youths – ‘one from the Canley area above Torrington Avenue, and the other from the Tile Hill area below Torrington Avenue.’

It is said that on the afternoon of June 12, the four defendants trawled the area on a stolen Triumph motorbike and in a blue Berlingo van, looking for members of the other group.

During the course of that, prosecutor James Curtis QC has told the jury, they got a can of petrol and torched a car outside an address where Manny and some of his group were at the time.

Later, with Kinchen riding the Triumph with Ruddock on the back, and Brankin and Richardson in the Berlingo, they spotted Manny and some of his group.

They pursued them along a walkway between Tile Hill Lane and Gravel Hill, as the group then fled into the gardens of houses in Franklin Grove.

It is alleged Ruddock and Richardson took up the pursuit on foot, with Richardson using an axe to smash open a garden gate.

“Ruddock caught up with Emmanuel Lukenga, who was the last to escape and was trying to climb a fence, a high fence, between two gardens.

“Ruddock stabbed him to death as he climbed that fence with one knife blow to the bottom area. It severed a vital artery in the perineum. He collapsed and died of a massive internal haemorrhage,” said Mr Curtis.

He played the jury a series of video compilations made from CCTV recordings from a number of locations, mobile phone footage and dashcams, showing the movements of the two groups as the defendants were allegedly hunting down their rivals.

Spliced into the timeline of the recordings was the ‘phone traffic’ between the defendants which had been obtained from their mobile phone data.

The jury then saw a recording from a CCTV camera at a property in Thimbler Road showing Ruddock and Kinchen walking across a grassed area, with Ruddock holding his phone, apparently recording a ‘selfie.’

And Mr Curtis then played a recording from a mobile phone said to have come from Ruddock’s Snapchat ‘story.’

In the recording, a person with his face digitally obscured by an emoji-style yellow face, chants: “Da, should have seen the way I kweffed him, da. I am shocked that all his brethren left him, da.”

Kweffed in urban slang means to stab or shoot someone.

That was seen by a young woman who was a follower of Ruddock’s Snapchat ‘story,’ and recognised his voice, so sent it to someone else who passed it to the police.

Shortly afterwards Brankin got out of a silver car in the same area, and when black car pulled up he went over to it and spoke to the driver through the open window.

“He is making a series of graphic gestures. We say there can be no doubt what he is miming, and therefore what he’s describing,” said Mr Curtis.

As that footage was played, he described Brankin making gestures consistent with driving, someone axing down a gate, and ‘someone ramming something up someone’s bottom.’ The trial continues.

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