Teenager who a zombie knife chest of a man row with mum months' youth

HE ADMITTED MANSLAUGHTER ON THE GROUNDS

- By TOM MACK

A BOY who stabbed a man in his home using a zombie knife has been sent to youth detention after pleading guilty to manslaughter.

The boy's mother and their next-door neighbour were jailed at the same time for their part in assisting the boy afterwards.

The victim, Louis Howard, 35, had got drunk and high on cocaine and gone to see the boy's mother at their city home in April.

He was let in after knocking on the door, but an argument between the boy's mother and Mr Howard began in her bedroom minutes later, with the woman refusing to let him borrow her phone.

He was grabbing at her pockets, demanding the phone, and she was telling him to "get out" of the house.

An audio recording from a neighbour's CCTV then captured the sound of screaming as the boy, who had been playing on his games console when Mr Howard arrived, came upstairs, entered the room and stabbed him.

The court heard that he had thrust a Zombie knife into Mr Howard's chest, stabbing him with such force he also broke one of Mr Howard’s ribs.

The blade punctured Mr Howard’s heart and he managed to walk to the bathroom before collapsing on his back and dying from internal bleeding.

The boy's two younger siblings were in the house.

After the stabbing he said of Mr Howard's actions, to his screaming mother: “Do you think it’s reasonable? To do that for a phone?”

Both the boy's mother and her friend lied to the police to protect the boy, with the mother telling officers Mr Howard had arrived at the house with the knife already in his chest.

The neighbour, meanwhile, pretended she had not seen the boy after the stabbing, when in reality she had given him a change of clothes.