Kennie Carter’s killer who was 14 when he murdered the youngster in a tit-for-tat feud can be named for the first time after he turned 18 and reporting restrictions automatically lifted
The teenager murderer who was just 14 when he stabbed a boy to death in the street has been named for the first time.
L’Vaion Peniston murdered 16-year-old Kennie Carter in Stretford as he walked home as part of a tit-for-tat feud. The killing was fuelled by revenge following an incident the day before. Last July, Peniston, then 16, was found guilty of murder at Manchester Crown Court where he was handed the youth equivalent of a life sentence, and ordered to serve at least 17 years.
Peniston could not be named during the murder case because of reporting restrictions imposed because of his age. Following his conviction, the Manchester Evening News applied to the judge for reporting restrictions to be lifted, but the application was rejected. Now he is 18, he can be named as reporting restrictions ceased to apply.
Last year during sentencing, Mr Justice Goose, said: “This was yet another killing of a young person with a knife against the backdrop of gang violence. Young males carrying knives in public in readiness to threaten and kill others is becoming all too common in our cities.
“The tragedy is that not only does it destroy the lives of the victims and their families, but also those who commit the offence.”
Kennie’s mum Joan Dixon said no punishment ‘would ever be enough’. She said she had seen the ‘person responsible’ for Kennie’s death ‘laugh and smirk throughout’ a court hearing. “This shows me he had absolutely no remorse and broke my heart even more,” she said in a statement read in court last year. “No penalty or what the court can award will ever be enough in my eyes. They have taken away our Kennie from his loving family and our lives are destroyed forever.”
Three teenagers were found not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter at the same trial. Latif Ferguson, then 18, was sentenced to five years detention. Boy G and Boy H were sentenced to four years detention. Six others were cleared of murder and manslaughter. The trial heard friends of Kennie were said to have been involved in an ‘altercation’ with others associated with the defendants, when a weapon was produced.
The following day, on January 22, 2022, the defendants travelled to Stretford. A resident at a block of flats saw a large group, estimated to be of about 15 people, arrive after 5pm. Three bikes were stolen from the communal entrance of the flats, with a shout of ‘this is revenge’ being heard by a witness. “In due course they were to abandon the bikes in Stretford,” prosecutor Jaime Hamilton KC said during the trial. “The bikes were not the prize.”
Kennie became ‘the focus of the revenge’ after he was spotted walking down the street. He had been on the phone to his older brother moments before he was stabbed. The line ‘went quiet for a moment or two’ before Kennie was heard to say: “Oh they’ve stabbed me in my heart bro.”
He was found lying in the street shortly afterwards, as members of the public desperately tried to save him. Peniston was seen on CCTV minutes after ‘re-enacting’ the killing, demonstrating how he’d stabbed him.
During the trial, Peniston, who was referred to as Boy A in reporting of the case, admitted stabbing Kennie. He claimed that he had acted in self-defence after alleging that Kennie had produced a knife. But a jury rejected his account and found him guilty of murder.
A heartbreaking statement was read in court on Kennie’s mum’s behalf by her sister. “My son was chased down in the street and killed on his way home,” she said. “At the time of his death he was just 16. For the last seven weeks we have had to listen to evidence of what happened to our son in graphic detail. How can we put into words how his death and the last two and a half years has affected us?
“It is not just Kennie that died on 22 January 2022. Our whole family has been destroyed by this mindless violence.”