Hassan Sentamu, now 18, has pleaded guilty to manslaughter after he accepted inflicting a fatal knife wound that killed 15-year-old Elianne Andam in September last year
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Police detain Hassan Sentamu after Elianne Andam stabbing
A teen accused of murdering 15-year-old schoolgirl Elianne Andam by stabbing her uttered five words as he was arrested for her murder.
Hassan Sentamu, now 18, is alleged to have plunged a kitchen knife 12cm deep into Elianne’s neck in the morning of September 27 last year. CCTV showed Sentamu fleeing the scene around the time of the killing and disposing of a knife, the Old Bailey court heard.
Police bodycam footage taken at 9:44am the same day, showed an officer approaching Sentamu and asking for his name as he was looking for “someone who has just stabbed someone”. Sentamu then handed over an Oyster card, which he held in his mouth, to the officer.
After being asked to put his hands behind his back, Sentamu told the officer: “I didn’t do nothing, bro.” He repeated the claim as an officer put handcuffs on his wrists. The arrest happened at a bus stop near his home less than 90 minutes following the stabbing.
Sentamu is alleged to have carried out the “dreadful attack” after reaching the “end of his short fuse”, the court was told. Prosecutor Alex Chalk previously said: “The defendant admits, in the face of overwhelming evidence you mat feel, that he wielded the knife and caused Elianne’s death.
“What he claims is that he has a defence to murder on the basis that he has autism diagnosed in 2020 and that his responsibility for his actions is thereby diminished. Accordingly, he has only pleaded guilty to the lesser offence of manslaughter.”
But in his opening to jurors, Mr Chalk said Sentamu’s autistic diagnosis and his “disrupted childhood” does “not and cannot sensibly amount to an excuse, justification or defence to the murder of Elianne Andam.”
He continued: “We will be submitting to you that whatever impact his autism had – and it may well have had some – it is nowhere near sufficient as a matter of law, medicine or of common sense to clear him of murder.
“Having heard the evidence you may feel that the catalyst for this dreadful attack was rather more simple: anger. White-hot anger at having been disrespected in public by girls, both by Elianne on the day of the killing and previously.
“Hassan Sentamu had a short fuse and as you’ll hear on September 27 at 8.30am he reached the end of it. And his calculated decision to bring a knife to the scene meant that the consequences of that outburst for Elianne and her family were utterly devastating.”
Sentamu, from Croydon, has pleaded guilty to manslaughter after he accepted inflicting the fatal knife wound. He denies murder and possession of a blade in a public place.
The trial continues.