Life terms for bus stab murderers

Two teenagers have been jailed for life at the Old Bailey for murdering a 21- year-old man in a row on a night bus.

Starfield Badza and Junior Lumbango, both 19 and from Croydon, were ordered to serve at least 18 years. The pair were convicted in October.

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

Judge Christopher Moss said Mr Ward, a roofer, had become "yet another victim of knife crime on our streets".

Mr Ward was on the N159 night bus after an evening out with his girlfriend when he was attacked.

The men argued and got off the bus at Gravel Hill where Mr Ward was killed.

Witnesses saw Badza put him in a headlock while Lumbango stabbed him, causing a fatal wound to the heart.

The judge told the killers: "Billy Ward had done neither of you any harm. He was, along with other young people on that bus, simply on his way home after a night out.

"He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. By contrast, both of you appeared to have been out for trouble.

"If Billy Ward offered any violence as the bus came to a halt it was because he had been sorely provoked by you, Badza."

"He was, when attacked, totally unarmed. It was a cowardly attack and more so because he was attacked by two men.

"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."

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