Daily Mail
September 21, 2015
A teenager was today sentenced to life in jail with a minimum term of 21 years for murdering a schoolboy while trying to steal his bicycle.
Joshua Williams, 18, stabbed 15-year-old Alan Cartwright in the chest on a busy street in Islington, north London while the victim was heading to a biking even in February this year.
He was found guilty of murder at the Old Bailey yesterday, and today a judge gave him a life sentence and ordered him to spend at least 21 years behind bars.
Williams was part of a gang which set upon Alan and his friends to try and steal their cycles using a ‘pincer movement’.
CCTV images showed how after the teenager was stabbed in the chest, he tried to cycle away but collapsed a few seconds later, and paramedics were unable to save him.
Sentencing Williams today, judge Rebecca Poulet said: ‘This was a wholly gratuitous and senseless piece of violence. It was motivated by acquisitive greed and the incident has rightly horrified and dismayed the public.