Teenager stabbed 15 times by rival gang members in postcode feud, court hears
Tavis Spencer-Aitkens. Picture: Supplied by family - Credit: Archant
A man from Barking is among six people accused of killing a teenager by stabbing him 15 times and smashing a bottle over his head to “settle the score” in a postcode feud, a court heard.
Tavis Spencer-Aitkens, 17, was attacked just yards from his family home in Ipswich on June 2 this year, a trial at Ipswich Crown Court was told.
Oliver Glasgow QC, prosecuting, said Tavis was murdered by rivals who were seeking revenge following an incident hours earlier in Ipswich town centre.
Aristote Yenge, 23, of no fixed address; Callum Plaats, 23, of Ipswich; Adebayo Amusa, 20, of Sovereign Road, Barking; Isaac Calver, 19, of Ipswich; Leon Glasgow, 42, of no fixed address; and a 16-year-old boy who cannot be named, all deny murder.
Mr Glasgow said Tavis was friends with a group calling themselves Neno or The Three, after the IP3 postcode and the Nacton area of Ipswich where they are from, and that the group recorded music and posted rap videos on YouTube.
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Tavis’s attackers were from a group calling themselves J-Block, after the Jubilee Park area of Ipswich, Mr Glasgow said, and both groups rapped about their rivalry.
The court heard that in the earlier incident two members of J-Block hid in a Lush cosmetics shop after they were spotted by two members of Neno.
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A plain-clothed police officer intervened “before violence could break out” but as the J-Block members had run and hidden it was seen as a “victory” for Neno, Mr Glasgow said.
He said J-Block members went to the rival area seeking revenge for the “loss of respect” and “tragically for Tavis Spencer-Aitkens he was the rival that they came across”.
Mr Glasgow told the court: “That group, which comprised these defendants, were people with whom Tavis and his friends had a heated rivalry.
“That group had travelled to the area where Tavis lived, seeking revenge for what they perceived to be a loss of respect.
“That loss of respect had been caused when two of their friends had had a row with two of Tavis’s friends earlier that day, and the defendants settled the score by smashing a bottle over Tavis’s head and stabbing him 15 times.”
Mr Glasgow, opening the prosecution case on Wednesday, said that five of the defendants armed themselves with weapons and “chased down their target”, while the sixth defendant, Leon Glasgow, was their driver.
He said Glasgow “knew precisely what he was getting himself into” and that without his help the attack could never have happened.
The trial continues.
