A teenage boy has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for the murder of student Martin Thomas.
Roehampton murder: The scene outside Mr Thomas' house last summer
Usher Ricardo Sawyers, 16, was found guilty of robbing Mr Thomas of a laptop, iPhone and camera and stabbing him to death in his Roehampton home.
Sawyers, of Carlton Drive, Putney, was just 15 when he viciously attacked the “quiet and private” 39-year-old student.
The teenager, who is 6ft 2in, was on tag for previous offences and in year 11 at school preparing to take his GCSEs when he murdered Mr Thomas.
He told the Old Bailey he “poked” Mr Thomas in the back with a kitchen knife because he lunged for him and Sawyers claimed he thought he was a paedophile.
The jury dismissed his argument of self-defence and convicted him of both murder and robbery.
Martin Thomas murder: 16-year-old guilty of murder and companions guilty of manslaughter
His companion Odel Munroe-Sobers, 20, of Sudbury House, Wandsworth High Street, was found guilty of manslaughter and robbery.
Today he was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Victim: Martin Thomas was a student at South Thames College
A 14-year-old boy, from Wandsworth, who was 13 at the time of the incident, was also found guilty of manslaughter and robbery. He was sentenced at the Old Bailey today to seven years in prison.
The court heard his mother had pleaded with him to tell the police what he knew.
The callous trio left with a laptop, iPhone and video camera, leaving Mr Thomas on the kitchen floor.
Neighbours spotted the youngsters entering Mr Thomas’s house in Huntingfield Road, Roehampton, on April 22, last year.
Minutes later they were caught on CCTV fleeing.
Sawyers entered Mr Thomas’s home first, telling the others to wait behind. He stabbed him five times, including four times in his back.
The stab wound that killed him was to the front of his chest.
It was a deep wound that went through his left lung and struck the back of his chest causing major bleeding from which he died very quickly.
The others waited outside until given a signal to enter and steal property.
When police arrived they found Mr Thomas slumped in his kitchen with blood throughout the hallway.
Sawyers left his hat and police tracked down the three defendants, who were subsequently charged.
Mr Thomas, who was described by his family as "ambitious" and "humble", was an aspiring car mechanic and had moved to London from Jamaica to make a better life for himself.
Sawyers has three previous convictions, which he had pleaded guilty to in youth court in May 2013, when he was 14 years old.
The first was for criminal damage and common assault and a third was assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
The baby-faced 14-year-old cannot be named due to legal reasons.
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