Birmingham: man murders his brother after dispute over incident at Lidl British News
A man who stabbed his brother in an incident at Lidl has been jailed.
Lenville Waite last year stabbed his older brother Clifton through the heart at his home on Waverley Road, Small Heath, south-east Birmingham.
Derby Crown Court was told the family had fallen out that day over a message with a picture of Lenville implicating him in an incident at a Lidl where a security guard was attacked.
At one point, the brothers left the property separately, but resumed the argument after they both returned.
“There was a confrontation that was probably unrelated, because of a fan,” Judge Shaun Smith KC told the 59-year-old defendant.
“Coming back to what you told the police that your brother would complain about something to start a fight. The Lidl incident came up again.
“Your brother said you couldn’t do to him what you did to the Somali man, referring to the security guard who was thrown on the floor in the store.” Obviously your mood just dropped at that moment.’
Lenville had previously used a knife during altercations to frighten his brother, the court learned.
The judge added, “I take it that you initially picked up the knife the way you picked it up before.”
“But when your brother didn’t have that, when he wouldn’t stop like he had before and started wrestling with you, you decided, if only for a moment, that you wouldn’t use it, to threaten him, but that you went to stab him with it and you stabbed him.
“And for him, it ended up in the wrong place.” It could have gone anywhere. It has not. He died very, very quickly.’
After the death of the 61-year-old, Lenville fled and initially stayed in a homeless shelter in downtown Birmingham.
He then traveled to Coventry, where he bought new clothes from Primark before his arrest.
When Lenville was arrested, he told police he was “glad it’s over” and had been “consistent” in explaining the background to the attack over the course of nine interviews.
The judge concluded that the crime was “aggravated” by the use of a knife, but acknowledged that he had not committed the killing intentionally and had the intent to “cause really serious harm” but not the “intent to kill” .
After a trial, Lenville was found guilty of murder and sentenced today to life in prison with a minimum of 17 years.
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