Teen showed no remorse for death of talented footballer
Turrell Auguste, 19, - Credit: Archant
A ‘remorseless’ teenager who stabbed a former international youth footballer to death has been jailed for at least 21 years.
Gokhan Durmus was stabbed in the neck in Chatham Place in Hackney in Saturday, February 7 (Picture: Met Police) - Credit: Archant
Turrell Auguste, 19, knifed 22-year-old Gokhan Durmus in the neck in a “vicious, brutal attack of spontaneous violence, which was swift as it was deadly” according to Judge Michael Topolski QC.
He had met up with Mr Durmus, a promising footballer who had been called up to represent Turkey’s under 15s national team, to buy cannabis from him on February 7 this year, along with his brother, Mathais, 21.
Mr Durmus’ best friend witnessed the stabbing in Chatham Place, off Morning Lane, but was unable to say which of the two brothers wielded the knife.
Mr Durmus, the eldest of three brothers, who lived with his parents in Walthamstow, managed to get to hospital after the stabbing.
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But he was in a coma for nine days, and despite undergoing emergency surgery, his life support machine was switched off.
His parents, who described him as a “friendly person, who was considerate and kind,” received a positive response to his application to become a pilot only after his death.
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Turrell Auguste went berserk at the Old Bailey when jurors convicted him of murder, but cleared his brother after they had blamed each other for the fatal stabbing.
Before he was brought into court to be sentenced on Thursday, his lawyer David Nathan QC said: “He is very calm and he has promised us he will behave with dignity.”
The court heard the Augustes carried knives because “they didn’t feel dressed without them”.
Sentencing him to life imprisonment with a minimum sentence of 21 years, Judge Michael Topolski QC told Turrell: “You are someone prepared to routinely carry a knife in public and you were doing so on this night.
“The tragedy is on this occasion you used it and you used it with devastating consequences, for which you have never shown the slightest bit of remorse.”
The judge said Auguste had lied in court by seeking to blame his brother for organising the meeting and carrying out the attack.
Turrell, of Catesby House, Frampton Park Road, South Hackney, and Mathais, of Amberley Road, Leyton, both denied murder.
Mathais was cleared of both murder and the alternative count of manslaughter.
