Bardia Shojaeifard stabbed Alfie Lewis to death ‘in full view’ of young pupils leaving school (Picture: PA/West Yorkshire Police)
A 15-year-old who stabbed another boy through the heart in front of horrified parents and children outside a primary school can now be named as Bardia Shojaeifard.
Shojaeifard, who was 14 at the time, was described during his trial at Leeds Crown Court as ‘outwardly normal’ but having harboured a ‘worrying interest in knives’.
He stabbed Alfie Lewis to death ‘in full view’ of young pupils leaving school in the Horsforth area of the city last November.
The teen admitted knifing him with a 13cm-long kitchen blade he had taken out with him from home but denied murder, claiming he only brandished it in fear for his own life.
He was jailed for life today with a minimum term of 13 years.
Shojaeifard can be named publicly for the first time after the judge, Mr Justice Cotter, lifted reporting restrictions preventing him from being identified on Friday.
He said lifting the defendant’s anonymity would help in the ‘vitally important debate about the scourge of knife crime, among young people in particular’.
Mr Justice Cotter said the public would be wondering how a young boy ‘from a loving and supportive family’ could commit such an ‘extraordinary’ crime ‘without forewarning or any warning signs save for some pictures of knives on his phone’.
Shojaeifard will be sentenced later on Friday.
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