A father was stabbed to death after a 15-year-old girl falsely claimed he was a paedophile, a court has heard.
Darren Kelly, 42, from Essex, England, was killed by a gang of ‘teenage vigilantes’ close to his home on October 20 last year.
The girl, who is now 16, is now standing trial in court with three other men – a 20-year-old and two 17-year-olds. All of them have pleaded not guilty.
In court, Prosecutor Crispin Aylett described how the girl was on a ‘personal campaign’ against paedophiles, and tried to get two men arrested after attempting to meet up with them online.
She then spoke to Mr Kelly on the anonymous messaging app Whisper, but by that point, Mr Aylett said she’d already “lost faith” in police and the justice system.
After arranging to meet him, she told her friends that he was a paedophile and they organised to ambush and attack him.
Victim Darren Kelly
Mr Aylett said in court there was no indication he had any romantic or sinister feelings towards under-age girls.
“In fact, there is plenty of evidence to suggest precisely the opposite,” he said.
“The girl instigated this attack by forming a group of teenage vigilantes in order to attack a 42-year-old man that she had met online.”
“She had told the others that the man was a paedophile and as a result he was punched, kicked and then stabbed to death in the street.”
When she was asked by police why she arranged to meet the two men, aged 23 and 67, she’d met on Facebook, she said: “Because they’re perverts and I don’t think perverts should be around and I don’t see anybody else doing anything about it.”
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