Five men jailed for a combined 93 years for murder of Thomas Cudjoe in Ley Street, Ilford

The five gang members found guilty of murdering a 29-year-old at a petrol station were sentenced this morning at the Old Bailey.

Thomas Cudjoe of Richmond Road, Ilford was stabbed to death on the forecourt of the Shell petrol station in Ley Street, Ilford on November 3.

Mr Cudjoe received 14 stab and slash wounds, with one puncturing a lung and another an artery in Mr Cudjoe’s right thigh.

Jerome Green, 23, of Ashgrove Road, Seven Kings was sentenced to 25 years in prison, Reece Garwood, 21, of Overton Drive, Chadwell Heath, was given 17 years and Courtney Mitchell, 23, of Clandon Road, Seven Kings, was sentenced to 18 years.

Asher Johnson, 25 and his brother Lewis, 22, both of Bellamy Close, Isle of Dogs, were each given 16.5 years.

On July 26, after a week of deliberations, the jury returned a unanimous guilty verdict for Green, Garwood and Mitchell.

Asher Johnson and his brother Lewis were also found guilty by a 10-2 majority. They all denied murder.

Following the guilty verdict Mr Cudjoe’s mother said the “senseless nature” of her son’s murder would “always haunt the family.”

She added; “To try to describe the impact that my son’s brutal murder has had on me and my family is to attempt to do the impossible, to describe the indescribable.

“From the horror of the terrible manner of his death, to the daily realisation that Thomas, my son, is gone is beyond words.”