Pair guilty of bus row stabbing

Two teenagers have been found guilty of murdering a 21-year-old roofer after a row on a night bus.

Billy Ward, from New Addington, Surrey, was stabbed 10 times in the abdomen, lungs and heart in December last year.

The Old Bailey heard that Starfield Badza and Junior Lumbango, both 19 and from Croydon, south London, provoked Mr Ward into a fight on the N159 bus.

Judge Christopher Moss warned Badza and Lumbango that they face life sentences when they return to court next month.

Mr Ward and his girlfriend went to the top deck of the bus at 0330 BST on 8 December last year, where Badza and Lumbango were telling people not to smoke.

Badza confronted Mr Ward and held his collar before sitting directly opposite him.

As the pair of teenagers left the bus at Gravel Hill, Badza made a gun-shape gesture at Mr Ward and tried to slap him.

"Unbeknown to Billy Ward the call to come outside was a call not to an exchange of fists or the like but an invitation to be knifed"
David Waters, prosecuting

A scuffle followed in which Mr Ward hit, or tried to hit, Badza.

Badza and Lumbango then asked Mr Ward to come outside and he jumped over the rail and downstairs after them.

Witnesses then saw Badza put Mr Ward in a headlock while he and Lumbango stabbed him.

David Waters, prosecuting, said: "What had happened is provocative behaviour by the defendants, particularly Badza towards Ward."

He added: "Eventually Ward has responded to the invitation to come outside. Perhaps he should have ignored it.

"Unbeknown to Billy Ward the call to come outside was a call not to an exchange of fists or the like but an invitation to be knifed."

Badza and Lumbango were found guilty despite blaming each other for Mr Ward's death.

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