A teenager branded “evil” and “monstrous” for stabbing to death schoolgirl Elianne Andam in a shopping centre row over a teddy bear has been jailed for life.
Hassan Sentamu, 18, was filled with “white hot anger” when he chased after 15-year-old Elianne and lunged at her with a kitchen knife outside a Croydon shopping centre.
Days earlier, Sentamu’s relationship with one of Elianne’s friends had ended and the shopping centre meeting was intended for an exchange of the former couple’s possessions.
The friend brought a bag of Sentamu’s clothes but he failed to bring her possessions, including a beloved teddy bear which she had left at his home.
During the row that followed, Elianne grabbed Sentamu’s bag and ran a short distance away from him – apparently in a show of support for her friend.
She was filming herself on Snapchat at the time, and the chilling footage shows her smile quickly evaporate in terror as Sentamu pulled out the knife he had secretly brought to the scene. Elianne was stabbed four times and died from the wound to her neck.
Weeks before the killing, Sentamu had confided in a friend: “The real me is evil, dark and miserable.”
On Thursday at the Old Bailey, Mrs Justice Cheema Grubb handed a life sentence to Sentamu and ordered that he serve at least 23 years before he can be considered for release.
“Elianne Andam was 15-years-old when you murdered her”, said the judge. “She will always remain just 15, she will never realise the potential of her life.”
He said Sentamu had “devastated the lives of those who knew and loved Elianne Andam, a bright, loving, and loyal 15-year-old on her way to school with her friends. the responsibility for Elianne’s death will be with you for the rest of your days.”
The judge highlighted a large mural of Elianne in Croydon, created after her death, which is the community “ declaring as forcefully as they can to young men like you - put the knife down.”
She concluded Sentamu had deliberately armed himself with a knife that day, and he intended to cause really serious harm when thrust the knife repeatedly at Elianne.
The judge said Sentamu’s anger issues, rather than mental health disorders, had been behind the murder.
As Sentamu was led away to the cells, a woman in the public gallery shouted: “F*** you, f*** your apology. You deserve the death penalty. Coward, you deserve to be spat on.”
Four members of Elianne’s family, her parents, an aunt, and a cousin, paid tribute to the “vibrant” schoolgirl and urged the judge to lock her killer for as long as possible.
Elianne’s mother, Dorcas Andam, condemned Sentamu for the “senseless, monstrous, and evil” stabbing.
“Our home was full of her music, her laughter, and her energy, there was always warmth and always joy - because Elianne was there”, she said, in her victim impact statement.
“She lived life to the fullest and always made life worth living. But now, the music has stopped, the laughter is gone. All that remains is deafening silence - a hollow, painful silence that echoes through every part of my life.”
She said her daughter had dreams of becoming a lawyer and tackling injustice, but their family have been robbed of seeing her grow-up and flourish.
“Elianne was beautiful, but her beauty was not just skin deep. She had a beautiful heart, mind, and soul”, she added.
“You took that from all of us”, she told Sentamu.
Elianne’s father Michael detailed the impact on his own mental health while struggling with grief and having to sit through a murder trial, adding: “No parent should ever have to bury their child...I could not protect her, and that guilt will weigh on my heart for the rest of my life.”
Sentamu was convicted by a jury of murder in January, after he tried unsuccessfully to blame the stabbing on his autism diagnosis and a loss of control.
Sentamu, dressed in a suit with his white shirt untucked, covered his face with his hands as the hearing began, and he doubled over in his seat in the dock as the victim impact statements were read.
Elianne’s cousin, Denzil Larbi, addressed Sentamu directly in his statement, calling the murder a “monstrous and evil act imaginable”.
“You will always remain the villain in our story”, he said.
Murder was planned because of ‘disrespect’ from girls
Prosecutor Alex Chalk KC told the trial the stabbing was fuelled by Sentamu’s anger at being disrespected, particularly because those challenging him were girls.
“The catalyst for this dreadful attack was …anger”, he said. “White-hot anger at having been disrespected in public by girls, both by Elianne on the day of the killing and previously.”
The court heard Sentamu’s rage was building from the end of the relationship, and was exacerbated by an incident the day before the stabbing when the same group of friends teased him and splashed him with water.
He told a friend after the incident “Bro, I can’t let this slide”, and the next day he had donned a mask and gloves and armed himself with a knife, showing planning of the attack.
Sentamu had a troubled childhood, and moved to the UK from his native Uganda as a child after allegations of domestic abuse against his father.
He had made past threats to kill himself, including when he pulled out a knife in class at the age of 13 and threatened to kill himself.
At the time of the fatal stabbing, Sentamu was studying sports science at Croydon College.
The court heard Sentamu broke off his relationship by text, telling his girlfriend: “Ur energy is dead I’m not rdy for a relationship…all the best.”
They swapped messages over the next few days, with Sentamu becoming increasingly hostile and aggressive. The girlfriend asked for her teddy bear back, and in one impatient message Sentamu wrote: “Ur wasting my time do you want your thingy or not? If everything isn’t in the bag your not gonna get your dumb little bear.”
On the day before the stabbing, Sentamu was teased in an incident which was partly caught on camera. When he was splashed with water, one of the girls joked “tomorrow he would kill them all”.
That night, Sentamu told a friend “bro, I can’t let this slide”, and he armed himself with a kitchen knife the following morning as he left home in New Addington, south London.
The meeting had been arranged for morning, before school, in the car park of the Whitgift Centre in Croydon on September 27, 2023.
The girlfriend, who cannot be named due to her age, returned a bag containing three hoodies and a pair of tracksuit bottoms to Sentamu. But he had come empty-handed.
She told the Old Bailey trial that she knew something was wrong because Sentamu was wearing black gloves and a Covid face mask, likening his appearance to that of characters about to commit crimes on TV show Top Boy.
She demanded the return of her teddy bear as Sentamu repeatedly dodged the question, before he finally replied: “Look, I don’t want to hurt you.”
Elianne then grabbed the Tesco carrier bag, and the friend described the moment Sentamu “got mad” and lifted up his shirt to retrieve the knife.
“She grabbed the thing, because I was annoyed because I wanted to go to school. He then lifted his hoodie quick, pulled out something, and I saw a big knife and I turned around for one second then saw her on the floor, trying to say stop basically with her hand out.”
The court heard Sentamu stabbed Elianne repeatedly, including while she was on the ground attempting to protect herself.
Sentamu was caught on camera fleeing the scene and trying to dispose of the bloodied knife.
He pleaded guilty to manslaughter before the trial but denied murder, and called psychiatric evidence to support his claim that his autism had been to blame.
Sentamu also denied but was convicted of having a knife with him in a public place.
In a report prepared ahead of sentencing, Sentamu failed to give an account of the murder, simply saying “it was all a blur”.
Prosecutor Ben Lloyd said Sentamu has put forward three different explanations for wearing gloves that day - as a fashion statement, because he was cold, and to stop people seeing that his hands were shaking.
The court was also told that Sentamu has attacked a young inmate while in custody after the trial ended, punching the boy in the face for tapping him on the arm.
Pavlos Panayi KC, for Sentamu, said the stabbing was “horrific”, but pointed out the teenager had admitted responsibility for the death though his guilty plea to manslaughter early in legal proceedings.
Sentamu will be handed a life sentence, with the judge set to determine the minimum term he will spend behind bars.
