A FIGHT between pupils from rival schools which ended in the “brutal and merciless” killing of a schoolboy in Victoria Station was organised on Facebook, The Old Bailey has heard.

The jury were told Sofyen Belamouadden, aged 15, was “hunted down” punched, kicked and stabbed by up to 20 youths in the ticket hall of the Underground station.

One of the accused killers is 18-year-old Victoria Osoteku, of Mereton Mansions, Brookmill Road, New Cross, who is suspected of helping arm the gang with a complete set of kitchen knives.

The court also heard the gang used batons, swords and iron bars to kill Sofyen with “indescribable aggression” in front of rush hour commuters.

CCTV footage from inside the station showed helpless Sofyen being knocked to the ground and surrounded.

Jurors were told that Osoteku was also seen on camera kicking Sofyen as he lay helpless and fatally wounded.

The murder was the result of “simmering tensions” between pupils at a sixth form college in Ladbroke Grove, west London and teenagers from his school and surrounding areas, the court has heard.

The first in a series of trials involving 20 defendants can now be reported after the Court of Appeal lifted an order which had previously prevented publication of the case, which started earlier this month.

Four 17-year-olds are in the dock alongside Osoteku, Samuel Roberts, Obi Nwokeh, and Enoch Amoah, who are all 18.

It was put to the court that Osoteku helped buy the £3.99 knife-set from Argos in Shepherds Bush during a lunchbreak as she was old enough to pay for the “age restricted items”.

Jurors heard the night before the death one of the 17-year-olds, who was just 16 at the time, took to Facebook to recruit “troops and weapons”.

He repeatedly asked online friends for a “flick-up ting” and later asked an older friend to “buy some nanks from Argos”, referring to a box set of kitchen knives.

Other defendants, who also communicated by texts, talked about the “madness” that was going to take place the next day.

Prosecution barrister Mark Heywood

Mark Heywood prosecuting said: “Sofyen Belamouadden was a 15-year-old London schoolboy who was pushed down and killed in broad daylight.

“He was given no chance of life. So brazen and confident were his killers, we suggest, they openly carried the various weapons they used with them as they ran towards him and hunted him down.

“Such was their arrogance that they carried out that kind of attack in heart of the capital city and public place, the terminus of the station at the height of rush hour and in the sight of scores, if not hundreds of people passing by going to their own homes.”

The barrister said the “confidence and arrogance” stemmed from the group nature of the attack.

He added: “Not one of them felt alone, or vulnerable or could be challenged or overwhelmed.

“That confidence and arrogance came too from knowing that between them they were so heavily armed that no other individual or smaller group or even a police officer or member of station staff could stop them.

“This, we suggest, gave them purpose and gave them strength.

“It explains why together they did something so truly terrible that none of them will now acknowledge any part of it.

“It explains why for a trivial slight they came to exact a dreadful revenge.”

Mr Heywood said the protection of the group allowed the defendants to act in a “brutal and merciless fashion”.

He said: “Sofyen was chased across Terminus Place, the area in front of the station, by these eight defendants and a dozen others.

“He was caught at the top of the stairs and attacked before he fell down the flight of stairs into the ticket hall.

“Landing on the floor, we suggest helpless, he remained there during the entirety of the brief and ferocious attack that followed.”

Witnesses said the attacking group had a “pack mentality, a collective sense of common purpose, as though they were a team” and used an “indescribable” level of aggression.

They had arrived at the station armed with a mass of weapons, including the Argos knife set, flick knives, metal bars, extendable batons and swords.

One boy was seen wielding a “Japanese-style sword” with a blade up to 30cm long.

He had bragged on Facebook the previous night: "I will bring my samurai".

They had turned up on two 52 buses around 5.14pm. The rival west London group, including Sofyen, has pulled in to Victoria two minutes earlier on a 148 bus.

“They were hopelessly outnumbered. They had already lost the arms race and it was obvious they had seriously underestimated what they were likely to meet at Victoria that afternoon.

“They didn't expect these kind of weapons and almost certainly didn't expect the level of ferocity,” said Mr Heywood.

The sword-brandishing youth led a “running charge” at their rivals.

The eight youths on trial were all seen behind him. Only one of them, a 17-year-old, did not go down in to the ticket hall as he chased one of Sofyen's friends.

Injuries to Sofyen Belamouadden

Sofyen was rushed to St Thomas's hospital, but could not be saved and he was pronounced dead at 6.15pm.

A post-mortem examination found 20 separate marks of injury on his body, including 11 “incised or cutting wounds” of which nine were individual stabs.

One wound to his right shoulder was 12cm deep and cut in to his right lung. Another to the front of the chest sliced through a rib and in to the heart and nicked one of his vertebrae.

There were also two wounds that went through his leg and a “slash or chop” wound to the top of his head.

Following the attack 12 of the 20 suspects boarded a C10 bus and appeared “hyper” and “pumped up” to other passengers.

One of the suspects was overheard telling a friend: “Didn't you see me run in to the station and shank him?”

Arrests

Police officers stopped the bus and found a selection of knives as well as blade-sharpening steels and a schoolbag.

Six of the teenagers now on trial were arrested at the scene.

The court heard the defendants' group thought of the station as their territory as they travelled from their homes in south London to school everyday and would hang around socialising after school.

On the previous day, March 24, the two groups of rival teens were seen arguing at the station.

One youth, to be tried for Sofyen's murder later in the year, was left with a bloody nose.

The argument is thought to be over a girl and had arisen before at a 'rave' the previous Christmas and again on March 23 and 24.

It acted as the “direct catalyst” for the pre-arranged meeting the next day which led to Sofyen's death.

Osoteku was arrested at college on March 30, having already lied to her foster mother by claiming she had not been at the murder scene.

Her home was searched, but she told officers she had suffered an “accident” and wet herself and had been forced to throw out her trainers because they were sodden.

She also said her trousers were “really wet” but still in her bedroom.

The court heard Sofyen's blood was found on at least three knives recovered by police and one of the sharpening steels.

There were also drops on Roberts' trainers and a black jacket worn by one of the 17-year-olds .

Roberts from Camberwell, Nwokeh from Borough, Osoteku, Amoah from Denmark Hill and the four other defendants deny murder, conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm and violent disorder.

The trial continues.