THE jury has been sworn in the trial of three young men accused of the knife killing of a 16-year-old boy in a Coventry street 15 months ago.
Jaydon James died in hospital after being stabbed during an incident in Deedmore Road, Wood End, at shortly before midnight on 24 November 2018.
Frank Kenfack, Abdirazac Abdi and Bongani Ngozi, have all pleaded not guilty at Warwick Crown Court to Jaydon’s murder.
Kenfack (18) of no fixed address; Abdi (20) of Foleshill Road, Coventry; and Ngozi (18) of Rosemary Way, Hinckley, have also denied wounding two of Jaydon’s friends with intent to cause them grievous bodily harm.
Judge Andrew Lockhart QC told a panel of 41 potential jury members: “I need jurors who can sit on this case until the 8th of April.”
He explained: “This case involves an allegation of murder and associated allegations of wounding with intent to cause really serious harm.
“A young man, Jaydon James, was killed in the Wood End area of Coventry. He was stabbed to death. Alongside him were two friends who were also stabbed.
“The prosecution case is that those attacks were carried out by these three defendants.
“It is alleged they travelled to the area by car and chased those three young men down and stabbed them. Mr James died from a single stab wound. The others were stabbed to the legs and the upper body.
“It is your task to decide whether these three young men were responsible.”
Each of the potential jurors was handed a questionnaire on which they were asked to say whether they recognised any of the defendants or knew any of the witnesses whose names were read out by prosecutor Jennifer Josephs.
They were also asked whether they had close connections with Deedmore Road or the Wood End area or worked at a Coventry hospital, school or for the city’s Social Services, or whether there was any other reason they could not sit on the jury for up to seven weeks.
Following their completion of the forms, a jury of nine women and three men was selected and sworn in.
A further man and a woman were also sworn as ‘reserves’ in case the prosecution’s opening of the case, which is not expected to take place until later this week, causes a problem with any of the 12 selected jurors.
