Man jailed for at least 20 years over stabbing cousin to death near Merry Hill
A father of three, who stabbed his cousin to death after a dispute so petty he could not remember what it was about, has been locked up for at least 20 years after being convicted of murder.
CCTV showed Glen Elvin armed with a knife chasing 28-year-old Christopher Harm across a car park, in Engine Lane, Brierley Hill, while both were drunk during the early hours of October 13.
When his cousin stopped and turned towards him the defendant plunged the blade into the chest of the victim with such force it pierced the heart.
Mr Harm, who had a two year old child, died at the scene despite the best efforts of paramedics and police officers to save him.
Judge James Burbidge QC told the 26-year-old defendant while passing the life sentence at Wolverhampton Crown Court: “This tragedy was born out of a set of facts too common across the country when a young man uses a knife all too readily over a relatively minor issue.
“The tragedy is that he was a friend – somebody you professed to love.
"You didn’t want to be seen as a coward and took the worst decision imaginable – you picked up a knife.”
Sarah Cox, the mother of one of Elvin's three children, was phoned by him shortly after the stabbing and recalled: "He sounded drunk, panicky and worried."
Elvin claimed the victim had tried to stab him with a piece of broken glass before being knifed.
It was the first of many lies as he frantically tried to construct a defence for the killing.
Twenty minutes later he rang again but this time he was in a police van and had put the phone on a seat.
Ms Cox said: "Somebody was saying he was being arrested and I heard Glen ask if Chris was still alive."
Ironically the fatal confrontation only happened because Elvin had just got the victim a job and the pair were travelling - and sleeping - in a VW van with two colleagues while driving round the country putting up posters advertising a circus.
The foursome went drinking together at pubs on The Waterfront near the Merry Hill centre in Brierley Hill and the cousins, who stayed out until the early hours of the following morning, returned drunk to the vehicle where their workmates - Alex Marshall and Alex Henderson - were sleeping.
They woke Mr Marshall who remembered the pair bickering in the front seats until he told them to go outside where the argument grew more heated.
They had regularly fought each other during their youth with Mr Harm regularly coming out on top while still managing to remain friends.
But this time Elvin was armed with a knife - grabbed from his kit bag mid way through the argument when he realised he was in for another beating - and, for once, held the upper hand with dreadful consequences.
The defendant, from Fern Avenue, Stanley, County Durham, who denied murder, admitted delivering the fatal blow but insisted he had not meant to kill his cousin.
Melissa, the victim’s younger sister said on behalf of the family: “Our lives have changed forever. I cannot describe the pain we are going through after a life of 28 years was taken for nothing by a cowardly act of jealousy and anger.
“I feel like a part of me has been taken away and can never be fixed.”
Mr Harm’s parents added: “We will never come to terms with our loss especially when it was caused by a distant family member and so called friend of our son.
“Nothing will heal our hurt, this has left our world upside down.”
