Teenager jailed for fatally stabbing dad who gatecrashed GCSE party

A teenager who fatally stabbed a father-of-two in the backside after he gatecrashed a GCSE celebration party has been jailed for eight years.

Adam Ward, 18, knifed 38-year-old Lee Marshall after he and a number of others turned up to the bash in Bulwell, Nottingham, uninvited.

He fled as Mr Marshall lay in a pool of blood on the pavement from a deep wound to his left buttock, pleading: ‘I don’t want to die.’

Police and paramedics battled to save him, but he died later in the morning on June 29 last year.

Ward, an aspiring soldier from Aspley, was whisked away from the scene by his cousin’s husband, Aaron Aziz, 29, before hiding the knife and burning the clothes he wearing.

He and four other teens were all cleared of murder at Nottingham Crown Court following a nine-week trial but Ward was convicted of manslaughter.

Mr Aziz, also from Nottingham, was found guilty of assisting an offender and given a 12-month suspended sentence.

Jurors heard Ward had been asked to guard the house.

During the evening a ‘troublemaker’ had been turned away, only to return later with reinforcements including Mr Marshall.

Ward admitted he had delivered the fatal blow after being handed a knife but claimed to have acted in self-defence to protect the rest of the group of teenagers.

In a moving statement Mr Marshall’s fiancée, Kim Gunn, described the impact losing her ‘soul mate’ had had on her and their two young daughters, aged eight and one.

She said they were ‘a normal, happy, loving family’ prior to the life-changing attack and were ‘excited over the arrangements for our wedding cruise planned for 2019’.

‘Our wedding and marriage will now never be a reality due to the senseless way Lee was killed,’ Ms Gunn said.

‘Simply put, Lee was in the wrong place at the wrong time walking our dogs. This thought still shouts at me, its haunting echo piercing in to what I think and feel.’

The social worker recalled the ‘terror and panic’ that rocked the home when they heard he had been stabbed and the agony of having to identify him at the mortuary.

‘I regret not spending more time with Lee, making more memories, but no one could predict that his life would come to an untimely and heart breaking end,’ she said.

‘I cannot imagine Lee not being stood by my side sharing the joy at the girls’ prom night, their graduation, when they go on to get married and have children.

‘When I think about what will now never be, I often cry or lay awake at night going over these thoughts.

‘I miss Lee so much. I wanted to grow old with Lee, he was my forever love.’

Detective Inspector Richard Monk said: ‘This is a tragic case which highlights the devastation caused by carrying knives.

‘One man has lost his life and two young men have had to face the consequences of their actions – had they not involved a knife in the altercation, I have no doubt it would have been a very different outcome.’