The mother of a teenager who was stabbed to death by his girlfriend has said he was “too ashamed” to report the abuse he endured during the relationship to police.
Kamila Ahmad, 24, broke in and repeatedly knifed music student Tai O’Donnell, 19, a day after his mum told him to end it with her.
Police and the London Ambulance Service rushed to the scene following the brutal stabbing at the flat on Alpha Road in Croydon on March 3, 2021.
They found Tai laying on the sofa with several stab injuries. He was pronounced dead at the scene having been injured some hours before the alarm was raised.
His cause of death was later confirmed as severe blood loss due to a wound to the left thigh.
In 2015 Ahmad knifed her ex, Karim Hussain, now 25, three times in a rage. He did not report the stabbing until he heard of Tai’s murder.
Ahmad denied all the charges but was found guilty at Croydon crown court of murder and of wounding Mr Hussain. She will serve at least 23 years in prison.
Speaking out about her tragic loss, Tai’s mother Stacey O’Donnell said she “made the wrong assumption that it was just an average toxic relationship”.
Ms O’Donnell told The Sunday Times: “I’d seen his stress. But I made the wrong assumption that it was just an average toxic relationship. There was nothing average about it. It was serious abuse. My son did not want to die.”
She said Tai felt too embarrassed to tell police that he was being attacked by his girlfriend.
“Tai wasn’t a timid boy,” she said. “He had a strong spirit. Never in a million years would I have thought that he would end up in a situation like this.
“He was a young, popular boy, he didn’t want to be seen as someone who was being terrorised by a girl. He was embarrassed.”
Detectives from the Met’s Specialist Crime Command immediately launched a murder investigation and arrested Ahmad two days after Tai’s passing. She claimed she knew nothing about the death.
However they found items discarded by Ahmad including a bloodstained rucksack and jacket. When forensically tested, they were found to be a DNA match to her victim.
The court heard that Ahmad had also carried out a knife attack on another man almost six years before the murder, in July 2015, following an argument over a remote control.
The victim, Ahmad’s then partner, was stabbed three times before being moved into the street in an attempt to mislead police into believing that he had been attacked by an unknown third party.
He did not initially wish to proceed with a prosecution against Ahmad but upon hearing of the murder of Tai felt compelled to support the investigation.
