Teenage Black Country murderers jailed for at least 20 years each
Dontay Ellis and James Peake left Jaskaran Kang to bleed to death after attacking him for his haul of cannabis.
Two teenage murderers have been locked up for at least 20 years after stabbing a shopkeeper to death with Rambo and Zombie knives for his stash of cannabis.
Dontay Ellis, 19, and James Peake, 18, repeatedly stabbed Jaskaran Kang as two teenage accomplices forced his flatmate at knifepoint to hand over drugs kept at the first-floor flat in Stourbridge Road, Dudley.
The 24-year-old victim bled to death in minutes from a catastrophic thigh wound as the masked gang fled with their haul.
Ellis and Peake were today jailed for life with a minimum 20-year term for the murder of shopkeeper Mr Kang on January 6 last year.
How cannabis racket ended in brutal murder - scroll down
Joshua Campbell and Michael Cunningham, both 18, were jailed for a combined 16 years and six months after forcing Mr Kang's flatmate Alexander Clarke to fetch the cannabis by holding a blade to his throat and stomach.
In dramatic scenes following sentencing, a fight broke out between the defendants in a corridor after they had been led from the dock.
Loud shouts and thuds were clearly audible in the courtroom as security officers tried to intervene between them.
As family and friends lingering in the public gallery listened in horror, Cunningham and Campbell were dragged back into the dock and pinned down as staff tried to gain control.
Family members were heard to shout "Leave him alone" at the security guards and appeal to the defendants not to resist the officers.
The clerk ordered the courtroom to be evacuated but there was further trouble outside the court in Newton Street as the families of the victim and defendants clashed.
The sentences handed out today were:
Dontay Ellis, 19, of Central Drive, Lower Gornal - jailed for life with 20 years minimum term for murder and conspiracy to rob
James Peake, 18, of Southgate Way, Dudley, - jailed for life with 20 years minimum term for murder and conspiracy to rob
Joshua Campbell, 18, of King Edmund Street, Dudley - jailed for 10 years for conspiracy to rob
Michael Cunningham, 18, of Coalway Road, Wolverhampton - detained for six years and six months for conspiracy to rob
Judge Jeremy Baker told Birmingham Crown Court: "This case represents yet another incident involving young men prepared to use knives to carry out crimes and in your cases, Ellis and Peake, with fatal consequences."
'A diamond as a friend'
The victim’s sister, Sukhveer Kang, described her brother as "a loving, caring son, father and brother, and a diamond as a friend".
She said: “He was such a loving boy, full of energy and always smiling, no matter what.
“His life has been tragically cut short by these four cruel strangers. The pain we are going through will never end.”
Ms Kang said that his two children - a daughter aged four and a three-year-old son - had been told their father was "a star in the sky" but still could not accept he will never be returning home.
She added: “He was the backbone of the Kang family and the person that kept us going as a family.”
She said that the family wanted to see justice done for his sake.
A statement was also read to the court from the mother of the victim's two young children, who said she was "deeply saddened" by his death.
"I've lost the one person I could lean on. I can't grieve because I still can't accept he's gone," she said.
The couple had been together for six years and although they did not live together, she described him as an attentive father to their children.
"He took them for days out and spoilt them - their lives will never be the same," she said.
She added that she now sleeps on a sofa downstairs ready to protect the children in case anything were to happen and was due to start counselling to help her through the grieving process.
How cannabis racket ended in murder
Stab victim Jaskaran Kang took a huge risk in operating a cannabis racket from the shop he ran with his brother – a gamble he paid for with his life.
The 24-year-old took orders for the drugs by phone while working at the business in Stourbridge Road, Dudley, passing on the orders to Alex Clarke with whom he shared the flat upstairs.
Mr Clarke would measure out the required amount of cannabis from a box they kept in the loft and send the package downstairs for collection, the murder trial heard.
People knew where to find him and, more importantly, they knew where he kept the drugs.
One of the defendants in the trial had twice bought cannabis from him on the day before the dealer was murdered. For Jaskaran Kang, the clock was ticking.
Role models
His convenience store was in a neighbourhood where positive male role models were in short supply.
Neither of the teenagers found guilty of his murder lived with their fathers.
James Peake, 17 years old at the time of the robbery, lived with his mother, two older siblings and a young cousin. The family had moved less than a year before from Coventry where Peake had appeared in the juvenile court for violent disorder.
Dontay Ellis had just turned 18 and was living with his grandmother and half-siblings in Lower Gornal. His parents had split up when he was very young and his father lived in Jamaica. Described as having learning difficulties, he had only ever worked part-time at a cousin’s Tipton scrapyard.
Where's the food?
On the night of the attack, they had been the last to burst into Mr Kang’s first-floor flat after smashing the front door off its hinges.
In front of them were Michael Cunningham and Joshua Campbell who headed for the first door they saw – the bedroom where Alex Clarke and his girlfriend Capriest Timberlake had been listening to the violent break-in with mounting terror.
“I was scared for my life,” he told the jury after Cunningham and Campbell, wearing balaclavas and armed with 12in-bladed knives, burst into the room demanding “Where’s the food?”
He described the weapon that was thrust in his face as a “crazy-looking knife with jagged bits on the top, similar to a Zombie knife – it’s one you don’t want to see.”
'Chill, chill'
As he hurriedly fetched the drugs from the loft, he could hear his friend urging him from the hallway to hand over the cannabis, then pleading with his attackers: “Chill, chill, he’s getting it for you.”
He did not see, and neither could Cunningham or Campbell, what was happening on the communal landing outside the flat where Mr Kang, who had been in the living room, was attacked by Peake and Ellis.
Ellis claimed the shopkeeper had punched him and there was a scuffle before Peake pulled Mr Kang off him. He alleged he was not carrying a knife and took no further part in the attack.
Peake claimed he had followed Cunningham and Campbell into the flat and took no part in the murder.
Cut-throat defence
The defendants may have sat next to each other in the dock but they were anything but united.
Each blamed the other for what happened, employing what is known in legal circles as the "cut-throat defence".
More than once, the court was held up because the pair had been fighting. Ellis claimed he was being intimidated. On one occasion he and Peake had to be separated by security officers when a scuffle broke out in the dock.
Either way, the jury was not fooled. Both were convicted of Mr Kang’s murder and were today back behind bars, beginning life sentences.
Ellis and Peake were found guilty of murder and conspiracy to rob on Monday after a trial at Birmingham Crown Court.
Campbell and Cunningham, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to rob, were acquitted of murder.
Tyrone Johnson, 18, of Malthouse Drive, Dudley, who had been with the robbers earlier that night, was found not guilty of manslaughter and conspiracy to rob.
