Nicholas Pearton

Nick Pearton’s Bromley Greenwich killers jailed

Kate Nelson, Reporter Friday, August 5, 2011
2:48 PM

The father of a teenager chased and stabbed to death by a gang said he suffers ‘overwhelming guilt’ and ‘emptiness’ since his son’s murder.

Dale Green

Vince Pearton read a statement on behalf of the family of 16-year-old Nick Pearton after watching seven teens jailed for a total of 74 years at the Old Bailey on Thursday (4).

Nick, who was studying carpentry, was stabbed in Home Park Recreation Ground, in Winchfield Road, Sydenham, on May 5 last year.

He arrived after his friends contacted him to say there was going to be a fight. But they had fled by the time he got there and he was chased by the mob.

Seventeen year-old Dale Green, from Catford, plunged a knife into Nick’s back as he ran away.

Joseph Appiah

He was sentenced to 15 years in jail for murder along with Lamarr Gordon, 17, from Bromley and Joseph Appiah, 16, from Eltham also convicted of murder and sentenced to 14 and 12 years respectively.

Mr Pearton said: “Our loss and the accompanying feeling of emptiness are all consuming and inescapable.

“My partner and I suffer from an unexplainable feeling of guilt that is overwhelming and never goes away. It remains with us in everything we do and has greatly disturbed the way we live.

“As a result we have had to stop the everyday activities that made our lives so special before Nick died. We can no longer go on holiday, browse through shops or even just enjoy a day out with our children.

Lemar Gordon

“Our justification is that if Nick cannot experience the things he used to savour then we shouldn’t either.

“Learning the facts of how Nick was brutally and needlessly taken from us has been the most difficult task my family and I have ever had to endure.”

Four others were found guilty of Nick’s manslaughter. They were Claude Gaha, 17, from Lewisham, Edward Conteh, 17, from Catford, Terell Clement, 18, from Deptford and Demar Brown, 16, from Lewisham.