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Teenager who stabbed a father to death on Christmas Day is jailed for life

9 September 2024, 17:19 | Updated: 9 September 2024, 19:10

A teenager has been jailed for life after he stabbed a father-of-two to death in a revenge attack on Christmas Day.

Kersharn Dockeray-Barnett, who was 17 at the time of the attack last year, murdered Reece Connor near Crown Island in Nottingham after they had an earlier "disagreement" in an underpass, a court heard.

Dockeray-Barnett murdered the 29-year-old by stabbing him once in the chest with a knife.

The teenager, now 18, claimed he had used the weapon in self-defence after Mr Connor had been the "aggressor" in their previous encounter, Nottingham Crown Court heard.

The jury rejected this and he was later found guilty of murder and sentenced to life with a minimum term of 19 years.

Prosecution barrister John Lloyd-Jones KC said: "It is a fair inference that on that night, Kersharn Dockery-Barnett was angry following events in the underpass and he sought revenge."

Judge Nirmal Shant KC said to the defendant: "There appears to have been some form of disagreement between you. I find on the evidence that you went to seek him out and at the end of that encounter, you killed him.

"It is plain to me that the second encounter came by because you wanted to teach him a lesson in relation to the first.

"You have deprived two boys of their father. And they, and his partner, found out the devastating news of his death on Boxing Day, a time when they should all have been together."

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Dockeray-Barnett, of Marchwood Close, Nottingham, who wore a light blue tracksuit, stood in the dock as his sentence was read out by the judge and then blew a kiss to his family sat in the public gallery.

In a victim impact statement read to the court, Mr Connor's partner Courtney Newton said "Christmas will never be the same again" for her and her children.

She said: "My Reece could always make me laugh and would do anything to make me smile. Boxing Day 2023 is a day I will never forget.

"I'm now a single parent struggling emotionally and financially to bring up my kids. He was my rock and I was his. I miss his smile, I miss my Reece. Forever and always, my love."