Linda Robson: My son cradled dying Ben
Linda Robson has told how her son Louis cradled Ben Kinsella in his arms after he was fatally stabbed in the street. The innocent 16-year-old was knifed 11 times on June 29 last year after being chased along the street with his friends. The former Birds of a Feather star told the Sunday Mirror: "Ben just fell into Louis who had to keep slapping him to try and keep his eyes open. Ben was just making groaning noises and when the ambulance arrived he never regained consciousness." "Louis had taken his cardigan off and he put it into what he thought was Ben's only wound. It really distressed him later when he discovered Ben had more wounds." She said neither 17-year-old Louis nor Ben had ever been in a fight. "We didn't bring our kids up like that. We brought them up to help out which is what Louis did that day." Juress Kika, 19, Michael Alleyne, 18, and Jade Braithwaite, 20, were given life custody with minimum terms of 19 years at the Old Bailey for Ben's murder. Braithwaite had called on the other two for back-up after getting involved in a row at a bar in Islington, north London, where Ben had been celebrating the end of his GCSE exams. Ben had not been involved in the incident, but was set upon when he stopped running and took shelter by a parked van.
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Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.
An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.