The shopping trip that ended in a bloodbath

SOPHIE CORCORAN UNRAVELS HOW 20-YEAR-OLD CAME TO USE DEADLY FLICKKNIFE HE CARRIED AS HE STROLLED STREETS WITH HIS EX-GIRLFRIEND

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The moment, taken from CCTV when Ahmad al Ibrahim was stabbed by Franco

TO the steady stream of shoppers who passed Alfie Franco on the day he became a killer, few would even remember his face.

He and his girlfriend walked through the busy town centre of Huddersfield, blending into the crowd as they shopped for “fake eyelashes and ice cream’:

Only Franco knew of the deadly flickknife he had stuffed in the waistband of his trousers.

He might not have woken up that day thinking “I’m going to use it’ but he had already bragged to friends he wouldn't be afraid to do so.

So, to the outside world, the pair looked like any other young couple on an innocuous trip so many 20-year-old couples have made together.

Franco, enjoying an ice cream, his girlfriend hoping to pick up a pair of new lashes.

It should have ended with the bus ride home to Dalton and a kiss between them as they said goodbye.

Instead, it ended in a bloodbath. The pavements were stained red with the blood of a boy he slayed in the street.

Because on that fateful day of April 3, aged just 16, Ahmad Mam-douh Al Ibrahim was also enjoying an equally normal day out in Huddersfield, although his trip was for a bit more than fake lashes.

His was on a feet-finding mission as he explored the setting for his new future, checking out his new college having arrived in Huddersfield just a few weeks before.

A Syrian refugee, Ahmad had hopes of becoming a doctor and dreams of a safe, successful life. A life he had craved and was carving out for himself after bravely leaving his parents in his war-torn homeland. In a flicker of a knife, all of that was snatched away in a chance encounter with Franco.