Boy ‘confessed to attacking 80-year-old in Snapchat messages’, murder trial told
The teenager, who cannot be named, said he did not mean to ‘batter’ Bhim Kohli, 80, in a park in Leicester.
A boy accused of murdering an 80-year-old man as he walked his dog in a park confessed to the attack in a message to a friend and said he was going “on the run” minutes before he was arrested hiding in a bush, a court has heard.
Bhim Kohli was allegedly racially abused and slapped in the face with a shoe by a boy wearing a balaclava and was filmed being attacked on a girl’s phone, a trial at Leicester Crown Court heard.
Mr Kohli had walked a short distance from his home to Franklin Park in Braunstone Town, near Leicester, on September 1 last year when he was attacked and died in hospital the next day after suffering fractured ribs and a spinal cord injury.
A 15-year-old boy is on trial charged with one count of murder and an alternative charge of manslaughter, while a 13-year-old girl is charged with Mr Kohli’s manslaughter.
Neither of the children can be named because of their ages.
On the third day of the trial, the jury heard the boy was sending and receiving Snapchat messages about the attack after details of the incident were published in the news.
The court heard in one of the messages, the boy was asked by someone if he had “leathered” Mr Kohli, to which he replied: “I watched him hit a girl and pull a knife out. So yeah.”
In another message to the boy, a friend said “someone smacked up an 80-year-old”, to which he is said to have replied: “I did that. I watched him pull a knife on a girl and hit her. I didn’t mean to batter him. I regret it man, I do.”
He also said he was “sorry for everything”, adding: “I f***** my life up. Everything is gone. I’m sorry bro.”
The male defendant had also messaged another friend asking if he could stay at their house because he was in a “fed chase” and had “10 officers after me”, to which the friend said no.
The court was told the boy’s mother pleaded with her son to come home at around 8pm the day after the attack after he messaged her to say he would not be returning because police were looking for him and he would “explain it” later.
His mother said: “I love you all the world and more but if you don’t want me stressed just come home so it can be dealt with. You’re making it worse for yourself, just come home.”
Prosecutor Harpreet Sandhu KC said Mr Kohli was pronounced dead in hospital at 8.47pm that evening.
At 9.30pm on September 2, the boy told a contact on Snapchat that he was at home to get money so he could get on a bus to nearby Hinckley and would then go “on the run”.
But eight minutes later, the boy was arrested by Leicestershire Police while hiding in a bush.
The court heard the boy had made a number of Google searches before his arrest for “Franklin Park news” and had read about details of the attack in a BBC article.
The trial continues.
