Two men who ambushed a motorist and stabbed him to death inside his Mercedes car will spend a combined total of at least 46 years behind bars. Donald Owusu, 25, Harvey MacFoy, 26, and an unidentified man attacked Albert Amofa after he arrived home in South Croydon, London, on the evening of December 15, 2019, the Old Bailey was told.
The men mistakenly thought their victim, a 33-year-old father, had a large quantity of drugs. Owusu, of no fixed address, and MacFoy, of Beachborough Road, Bromley, had meticulously planned the attack on Mr Amofa, who they believed would be in possession of a sizeable quantity of cannabis. They went so far as to buy a tracker which they fitted to Mr Amofa’s Mercedes.
Owusu stabbed the father-of-one multiple times in the leg in the car, leaving him to bleed heavily onto the pavement and die the following day. MacFoy and a third defendant, Theo Brown, were accused of conspiring to pervert the course of justice by disposing of the hire car used by the attackers. Brown, 32, of Horsham, West Sussex, who alone denied the charge, was said to have been involved in taking the Peugeot to Nottingham, where it was left in a residential street.
Assault down 'nightmare alleyway which is a haven for muggers' - read more here
Mr Albert Amofa's family said: “Albert’s death has predictably devastated our family and also affected us in ways that you cannot imagine. A mother has lost her son, a son has lost his father, siblings and cousins lost a brother; the list goes on. Albert’s wife is now a single parent through no choice of her own, having to navigate life without her husband to parent their son into adulthood.
“Whatever the sentences handed out today, it would never be enough to compensate for the infinite loss and pain in our lives. Albert’s cheeky smile along with kind and caring nature lives on his son. We hope that the defendants are troubled by the devastation they caused every day of their imprisonment.
"We hope they never have the opportunity to hurt anyone like this ever again, that’s the justice that Albert, and us as his family, deserve. We say that Black Lives Matter yet very little is being done to address black on black crime. We hope that this tragedy can inspire people to address the issues within their communities and prevent a loss like this from ever happening again.”
Owusu received life with a minimum of 25 years, while MacFoy received life with a minimum of 21 years. Brown received a sentence of nine months in prison.
A post-mortem examination found that Mr Amofa had five wounds to his back and thigh, one of which had penetrated the femoral vein and resulted in substantial blood loss. Investigators trawled through CCTV footage to track down the attackers, who had arrived in a Peugeot car.
It had been hired through an app which used GPS tracking, enabling police to recreate the defendants’ movements to and from the scene. The prosecution suggested the attackers believed their targets had a large consignment of cannabis in the Mercedes after the drugs were advertised on social media.
As a result, bus driver Mr Amofa was ambushed within moments of parking outside his home. The court heard that Owusu’s DNA was found on the tracker fitted to the Mercedes.
Detective Sergeant Quinn Cutler, a homicide detective from the Met’s Specialist Crime who led the investigation, said: “Our goal as an investigative team was to gain an overwhelming chain of evidence to ensure convictions and strong sentences against these callous criminals.
“We worked tirelessly to understand what happened to Albert and identify those responsible. In doing so two very dangerous and callous drug dealing criminals have been put behind bars. Our thoughts throughout this investigation have been with Albert’s loved ones who have suffered such an unimaginably sad loss.”
READ MORE HERE:
