'Honeytrap' girl, gang jailed for teen's murder

Samantha Joseph, 17, led Shakilus Townsend into an ambush in a quiet cul-de-sac where he was beaten by a love rival and his gang with baseball bats and stabbed six times.
The teenager bled to death after the “relentless and merciless attack” by a masked and hooded gang in Thornton Heath, south London, in July last year.

Joseph, who was 15 at the time, laughed as the gang caught up with him, walking away as they began their assault. Her older boyfriend Danny McLean plunged a knife into Shakilus’s chest, raking it across his liver before twisting the blade. Joseph and McLean, 18, were found guilty of murder alongside five other youths in July. They were all given life terms on Saturday. The court heard that Shakilus had been besotted with Joseph and told his mother he wanted to marry her, but she told friends she was just using him and treated him like “shit”. While Joseph was happy for him to shower her with gifts, she was still obsessed with McLean, who had dumped her when he found out about her relationship with Shakilus. She was prepared to do anything to get McLean back and he told her: “If you still love me, will you set up Shak?” She agreed.

CCTV footage from the day of the murder showed Joseph wearing a see-through floral dress as she met Shakilus and took a bus with him.
He thought they were on their way to meet her cousin but in fact she was leading him into the ambush.

After the murder, Joseph was seen walking off with McLean, carrying his hoodie and a cream-coloured handbag stained with his blood from an injury sustained during the murder.
She later tried to “rub out” all traces of her relationship with Shakilus, deleting his online Bebo account and telling friends to erase his number from their phones.