WhatsApp 'gay' row stabbing: Man guilty of murder Published duration 22 February 2018

image copyright Met Police image caption Jordan Wright died after a fight last April in Shooters Hill, south-east London

A student has been found guilty of stabbing his 19-year-old friend to death over a "petty" WhatsApp argument.

Paul Akinnuoye and Jordan Wright traded "gay" insults on a group chat on 19 April 2017.

The argument escalated and the pair agreed to a fight in Shooters Hill, south-east London, where Akinnuoye attacked Mr Jordan with a knife.

The teenager, who was due to start an apprenticeship the following week, died of his injuries the same day.

Akinnuoye, 20, of of Cobbetts Ride, Tunbridge Wells in Kent, called Mr Wright a "batty boy", to which he responded: "On your mum's life I'm straighter than you," the court heard.

Akinnuoye travelled from Tunbridge Wells and after two hours met with Mr Wright, who suffered from autism, and a group of males on Hervey Road in Blackheath.

While Akinnuoye armed himself with a small knife, the victim came unarmed as he regarded it as a "fist fight" and told a friend that he would "punch [Akinnuoye ] up," the court heard.

image copyright Met Police image caption Paul Akinnuoye faces life in prison

Prosecutor Tony Badenoch QC told the Old Bailey the "root of the dispute lay in a petty argument".

He said CCTV of the meeting showed "Jordan Wright is passive and standing to the back as other events unfold".

The fight, in which Mr Wright was stabbed in the chest, neck and arms, "lasted only a couple of minutes," Mr Badenoch said.

His mother Katharine Alade said the trauma caused by her son's death had left her feeling so distressed that she had contemplated suicide.

She said: "There is not one day when I don't shed tears. I didn't think it was possible to feel such physical, psychological or mental pain.

"It is now nearly a year later and I still feel as depressed as I did the day I [was] told that my son did not make it."

Akinnuoye admitted being present at the fight but claimed it was another man who had stabbed Mr Wright.