A teenage girl who acted as a “honey trap” to lure a smitten 16-year-old boy to his death at the hands of a love rival is facing a life sentence.

Samantha Joseph was convicted of murder at the Old Bailey for leading Shakilus Townsend to the cul-de-sac where he was killed by a masked and hooded gang.

The love struck teenager bled to death after being beaten with baseball bats and stabbed six times in a “relentless and merciless attack”.

He was besotted with Joseph, a schoolgirl from Brockley, south east London, and told his mother he wanted to marry her, but she told others she was using him and treated him like “s***”.

While Joseph, who was 15 at the time, was happy for Shakilus to shower her with gifts, she was still obsessed with another teenager, gang member Danny McLean.

McLean had dumped her when he found out about her relationship with Shakilus but she was prepared to do anything to get him back.

CCTV pictures from the day of the attack in July last year show Joseph wearing a see-through floral dress as she met Shakilus and took a bus with him.

He thought they were on their way to meet her cousin but in fact she was playing a “dangerous double game” luring him to the ambush in Thornton Heath, south London, while secretly keeping in touch with McLean by mobile phone.

She laughed as his attackers caught him and began raining down blows with fists, feet and baseball bats before she turned and walked away.

McLean — who had himself been injured by a bat during the furious melee — plunged a knife into his chest, raking it across his liver before twisting the blade.

As he lay bleeding to death Shakilus called out for his mother and cried: “I don't want to die.”

Joseph, who can now be named after trial Judge Richard Hawkins lifted an order banning her identification, was later seen walking off with McLean, carrying his hoodie and a cream-coloured handbag stained with his blood.

McLean was wearing a bright orange bandana, the colour identifying him as a member of the “Shine My Nine” gang to which he and the other attackers belonged.

Joseph later set about trying to “rub out” any trace of her relationship with Shakilus, deleting his online Bebo account and telling friends to erase his number from their phones.

In court she admitted agreeing to lead him into the ambush so that he could get beaten up but said she did not realise he would be seriously hurt.

But jurors rejected her explanation and she was found guilty of murder along with McLean (18) of Thornton Heath.

Brian Altman QC, prosecuting, told jurors: “Shakilus had been seeing her for a matter of weeks, but she was playing a dangerous game, because she was cheating on Danny McLean.

“It is clear that he had come to learn of her deception and, by way of recompense, she agreed to set up the hapless Shakilus Townsend in a honey trap with a lethal and tragic twist.

“She was more than equal to the task.

“She played her part to perfection, duping Shakilus who could see no wrong in her, the others in hot pursuit of him.”

Shakilus's mother Nicola Dyer, (34) said: “He said he was really in love with this girl, that she was to be his future wife and that she was going to have his kids — he was really smitten with her.”

Brothers Tyrell Ellis (19) and Don-Carlos Ellis (18) from Thornton Heath, were also convicted of murder, together with Andrew Johnson-Haynes, a 19-year-old former public schoolboy from Croydon. Two other youths, Andre Thompson and Michael Akinfenwa, both 17, were found guilty of the charge as well.

The defendants were remanded in custody to be sentenced on a date to be fixed.

Belfast Telegraph