00:00:00
[AUDIO LOGO] [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] [SURGING TUNE] NARRATOR: At just past
8:30 in the evening,
00:00:23
a 16-year-old boy is found
bleeding in the street. [SIREN BLARING] ADE GEORGE:
The initial 999 calls
00:00:29
that came in came
from two passers by who spoke
to the ambulance service and talked them
through what they
00:00:35
could see at the scene,
which was a young man lying on the floor. And they perceived
that he'd been stabbed.
00:00:41
Understandably, they were very
distressed by what they'd seen and were trying their best
to administer first aid
00:00:46
in difficult circumstances. It was clear that this was
a really serious incident
00:00:50
and that the victim
was critically injured. NIKITA KANDA: I called my dad. And he goes, the boy is gone.
00:00:57
That's all he
said, boy is gone. NARRATOR: This video,
provided by a neighbor,
00:01:04
shows a threatening man. He's seen walking past
a home holding an ax. [MAN SCREAMING]
00:01:13
[OMINOUS MUSIC] [POUNDING] [WHOOSH] [CONTEMPLATIVE MUSIC] POOJA KANDA: About 6 o'clock,
I went to my meditation class.
00:01:32
[ECHOING DRUM] And my neighbor who was
there as well at that time, she got a call.
00:01:45
And she said,
Pooja, there's been stabbing outside our house. [PHONE RINGING, SIREN BLARING]
00:01:53
I rang my husband. And I told him,
there's something going on outside the house.
00:02:01
Where is Ronan? Oh, yeah. He looks out the window. He said, oh, yeah,
something's going on.
00:02:07
Loads of people are out there. Police is outside. And then he goes out
to see what's going on.
00:02:15
And he gives me a call. They're saying it's Indian boy. They think it's Ronan.
00:02:23
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] NARRATOR: Rapid
response doctors work frantically, performing
surgery where Ronan fell.
00:02:32
But their efforts are in vain. - The injuries were
so catastrophic that they were unable to save his life.
00:02:44
Ronan was declared
deceased at 21:09 hours by the attending doctor. What I was essentially
faced with was a murder,
00:02:55
you know, a really violent
attack in broad daylight. NARRATOR: Pooja races from
her class to the crime scene.
00:03:08
- I'm saying, let me
through to the policeman, who's taped the whole area,
and they won't let me in.
00:03:15
I tried pushing. I screamed, I screamed. They wouldn't let me through. Then the ambulance
guy came forward.
00:03:25
They said they tried to operate
on him to save his life, and they couldn't. [FRANTIC MUSIC]
00:03:34
I'm like, no! This is not-- you cannot
tell me that my son has been stabbed and died.
00:03:48
No, you can't tell me that. NARRATOR: As night
draws in, police searched the crime
scene for evidence
00:04:00
and canvassed the area
for potential witnesses. [THROBBING] ADE GEORGE: The golden hour
is really important for us
00:04:07
to maximize all the
opportunities that we possibly can, to obtain some accounts
as to what may have happened,
00:04:13
to do a little bit
of door to door in order to be able to see if there's
any other witnesses that
00:04:17
may have seen things because
they're in the home addresses. One was a 15-year-old girl who
witnessed what had happened.
00:04:24
She was able to describe
seeing two people stabbed Ronan and then run away. And we had a third witness
who was in her home address,
00:04:33
and she also saw
them running away. So who are
the offenders in this? What direction
have they made off?
00:04:39
Did the deceased
know who they were? Is this a gang-related
sort of incident? Could this be a robbery?
00:04:48
What struck me really was just
the quiet nature of the road. It's a very unusual thing
to occur in broad daylight
00:04:56
in a residential area. [DISTANT SIREN WAILING] NIKITA KANDA: I just
finished university.
00:05:06
Me and my friends
decided to book an end-of-year trip to Greece. So it's around about--
00:05:13
think in Greece. It was like half
9 or 10 o'clock. [GLEEFUL CHATTER] And then I received a Snapchat
message from one of my friends.
00:05:23
And she said, hey
Nikita, I hope you're OK. I know you're
in Greece, but I just
00:05:27
wanted to let you know
that there's a blue tent outside your house. It looks like
there's somebody's
00:05:32
been murdered out there. And I was like, oh,
what do you mean? She said, yeah,
it's a 16-year-old
00:05:35
boy that's been murdered. [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] First thing I did
was I called my mom.
00:05:42
I think she didn't pick up. Then I called my dad. And he goes, boy is gone. That's all he
said, boy is gone.
00:05:50
And I was like, what? And he was like, he's
like, Ronan has died. [OMINOUS MUSIC]
00:05:58
[THUNDERCLAP] POOJA KANDA: He was
lying on the road. I was not gonna leave him. So I sat on that road
because he was on there.
00:06:22
Couple of neighbors
sat next to me. And I told everyone to just go. Leave me alone.
00:06:32
They said, it's raining. Come inside. [RAIN POURING] How could I leave
my son on the road?
00:06:42
He's already gone. How could I leave
him on that road and go inside
and sit on the sofa?
00:06:53
That's impossible. [THUNDERCLAP] [FRANTIC MUSIC] ADE GEORGE: Obviously,
being in a residential area,
00:07:11
I was aware that there was lots
of home surveillance cameras. So it's about tasking officers
to go and start knocking doors
00:07:18
and seeing what home
surveillance footage they can find from
addresses along this road
00:07:24
on the left hand side and along
the road on the right hand side, but also from cameras
in the rear gardens,
00:07:31
at the front of houses,
both doorbell cameras and traditional sort of home
surveillance cameras.
00:07:38
What we wanted was some footage
of the incident occurring or some footage
of suspects either
00:07:44
going to or from the scene. [CAMERA CLICKS] [AMBIENT MUSIC] NIKITA KANDA: Ronan was
just an amazing person.
00:07:57
Say something. - Hi, I'm Ronan. [LAUGHING] - It's crazy because even
though obviously, he's a boy,
00:08:04
I'm a girl, we're
five years apart, you would think we don't have
many interests and stuff.
00:08:09
But we did share a lot
of the same interests. We used to watch
the football together.
00:08:16
[CAMERA CLICKS] We both were a massive
Liverpool fans. [CAMERA CLICKS] My mom, she always used
to say, you were like twins.
00:08:26
MAN: And also look at-- NIKITA KANDA: Lynn. MAN: They're dirty words. - He was literally
the funniest person ever.
00:08:34
And I think one thing we all
used to really love about him is his dry sense of humor.
00:08:38
[FAINT DANCE MUSIC] We would go to, like,
family's houses, and he would just say
what everyone's thinking.
00:08:43
Everyone would just
sit there like, did he really just say that? And everyone would love it.
00:08:47
And they would just laugh,
like, endlessly at him. [AMBIENT MUSIC] And if somebody ever
asked him something,
00:08:54
he would want to make
sure 100% he could do it. He literally would do
anything for anybody.
00:09:06
[CARS WHOOSHING] NARRATOR: The search
for evidence pays off. Officers recover video
from several houses,
00:09:15
showing Ronan walking
home along Mount Road before he was attacked. [FRANTIC MUSIC]
00:09:22
ADE GEORGE:
The information the family gave us actually gave
us an idea as to what
00:09:27
Ronan had been up to that day. So about 8 o'clock,
he was walking down to his friend's house
in order to purchase
00:09:33
a PlayStation controller. This is Ronan now being
picked up on a camera at the bottom of Mount
Road, heading back
00:09:42
up towards his home address. He's just walking up the road. He's in a world
of his own, really.
00:09:48
I think he's listening
to some music, having done something very
normal, very innocent,
00:09:52
going to buy
a PlayStation controller, just heading home
in order to use that. NARRATOR: As they scour
the video, investigators spot
00:10:01
something suspicious, a red
car circling the area. ADE GEORGE: The home
surveillance
00:10:11
footage identified
that they don't just drive into Mount Road once. They go down some
of the side roads,
00:10:16
they go back onto
the main road, and then they come
back into Mount Road. [CAR WHOOSHING]
00:10:22
[UNSETTLING PIANO TUNE] And then you see that
the vehicle is now doing another maneuver,
turning around in Mount Road,
00:10:33
and then heading
back in the direction that Ronan has just walked in. So this is Ronan coming
from the left hand side,
00:10:43
walking up Mount Road. And now you see the red
vehicle turn into Beech Avenue. The car is parked up
in one of the side roads.
00:10:56
NARRATOR: Then the two
men head towards Ronan. [CAR WHOOSHES] ADE GEORGE: You see then
two suspects running up.
00:11:06
And you'll see them running
up just as that van comes up, both brandishing weapons.
00:11:12
[OMINOUS MUSIC] We actually had no idea
who these individuals were. But it gave us a description
of the suspects.
00:11:26
NARRATOR: The same camera angle
shows the two men fleeing. [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] ADE GEORGE: They
both turned around,
00:11:33
gone back to the car, running
at speed, and driven away. NARRATOR:
For detectives, tracking
00:11:40
down this small red
car is high priority. ADE GEORGE: From the discovery
of that initial footage,
00:11:50
we were then able to deploy
officers to continue the CCTV trawl to really narrow
down what potential vehicles
00:11:57
this could be. [DARK AMBIENT MUSIC] NARRATOR: When Nikita
arrives back in the UK,
00:12:06
she's met by her aunt. NIKITA KANDA: I had
convinced myself that I was gonna see
Ronan at the airport
00:12:15
and that this was all
some sort of sick joke that my family
were playing on me. And I just remember
seeing her, and
00:12:22
I just burst out
into tears thinking, what the hell has happened? And they drove me home, and it
was literally just the worst
00:12:32
thing ever, honestly. It was police tapes everywhere. My brother's blood
was on the road.
00:12:42
[SCARE CHORD] My mom was like, just on the
floor, crying her eyes out. POOJA KANDA: I'm still there!
00:12:52
I, mentally, still sit there. I-- it's not gone from me. This never will go from me.
00:12:59
But it's-- it's so horrific and
sickening that your child is-- within that second, my son
was just taken from me.
00:13:14
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] JOE MILLINGTON:
So the local areas, you've got the good
side of things
00:13:24
where like there's a bit
of a community going on. And then you've got
the bad side of things
00:13:28
where it's like the youths
going around on bikes with weapons, et cetera. Like, that's just a common
thing in our area now.
00:13:38
So I'd say knife crime, like,
in Wolverhampton as a city is like, it's a growing problem.
00:13:45
I can't remember the last
time where I felt safe walking through Wolverhampton.
00:13:50
It's a horrible feeling. But as bad as it sounds,
it's normality now. And I think there's
possibly some people
00:13:57
that were involved with gangs. I know of, like, a few
people that definitely were,
00:14:02
but there's people that will
go around saying that they're in a gambling or not.
You know what I mean?
00:14:06
They'll just do it
for bragging rights. NARRATOR: Because there
are teen gangs in the area,
00:14:11
detectives need to look
into Ronan's background to see if he was involved. [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]
00:14:22
ADE GEORGE: Ronan
wasn't known to police. He wasn't known
on any of our systems.
00:14:27
And so therefore,
that takes away, like, kind of that element of,
is this a gang-related sort
00:14:31
of incident,
because you've got somebody who's got no
previous, like, kind
00:14:35
of contact with the police. NARRATOR: As police
pieced together Ronan's last hours
alive, they discover
00:14:43
that he'd visited a local
snooker club earlier that day. ADE GEORGE: This footage
here is Ronan, getting out
00:14:52
of the car with
his friends, going to enjoy an evening with
his friends, you know,
00:14:57
at the snooker club. You see him, like,
kind of walk in, being like, kind of,
smile on his face,
00:15:02
greeting his
friends, et cetera. Having a little bit of a play
around with some of his
00:15:07
friends, just acting
as 16-year-old kids do and 16-year-old lads do. This footage really
does demonstrate
00:15:17
that he'd got lots of friends. He was a popular kid. [CONTEMPLATIVE MUSIC] JOE MILLINGTON: Ronan literally
just lived, like, a five-minute
00:15:35
walk away from my house. He used to walk to school
with me literally every day. He was one of my closest mates.
00:15:46
So Ronan was really
popular at school. Literally everyone
got on with him. I don't think you could go
to anyone from our year group
00:15:52
and ask him about Ronan
and them say a bad thing. I think genuinely,
everyone loved him.
00:15:58
Just a happy person. [CAMERA CLICKS] He was just always
bubbly, energetic, and he'd bring your mood
up no matter what.
00:16:07
I think that's what
people loved about him. Like, that's what
I loved about him.
00:16:11
I think that's what
everyone else did as well. [LAUGHTER] - Did you happen to lock that?
00:16:17
- No!
Hey! [LAUGHTER] - He was a really popular
child, really popular kid. Life and soul of the family,
really smiley.
00:16:25
You know, had lots of friends. Just a really friendly,
polite, and nice kid. Nobody had an idea
as to who would have
00:16:34
targeted Ronan in this way. NIKITA KANDA: Me, my mom,
and my dad, we were like, who on earth would
want to kill Ronan?
00:16:42
So the first thing we
thought was maybe someone had robbed him, somebody had
taken something off of him
00:16:47
because we couldn't
see any other motive. [CARS WHOOSHING] NARRATOR: Police retrieve
more home surveillance
00:16:54
footage from the neighborhood. It shows Ronan walking
home after he'd picked
00:16:59
up the PlayStation controller. ADE GEORGE: So we discovered
some home surveillance
00:17:06
footage on Mount Road which
showed the actual offense taking place. [OMINOUS MUSIC]
00:17:12
It was a completely
cowardly attack. You see that Ronan doesn't
have any idea what's happening,
00:17:22
no idea that
anybody's behind him. [WHOOSHING] You can see them then
running towards Ronan.
00:17:30
[AMBIENT MUSIC] [OMINOUS MUSIC] He's first stabbed
to his right hand side. And then he's
stabbed in the chest.
00:17:50
He staggers up
the road, where he eventually collapses and dies. My gut reaction from
seeing the footage
00:18:00
was just the sheer
size of the weapons that the suspects
decided to use. They made no effort
to conceal them.
00:18:05
So when we see them on the home
surveillance footage, they are running towards Ronan.
00:18:10
And they've got those
weapons, like, kind of held out in front of them. And you can just see
just how long they are.
00:18:17
They are like swords.
They're not knives. They're swords. It really did demonstrate that
there was an intent to cause
00:18:24
serious injury to Ronan. [UNSETTLING MUSIC] NARRATOR: Ronan's killers tried
to obscure their identity,
00:18:37
but there are important
clues in this footage which could help the investigation.
00:18:44
NICK BARREIRO: Video forensics
is the scientific analysis, enhancement, authentication
of any sort of video evidence
00:18:53
that may be used
in a criminal case. It's the scientific analysis
of recorded evidence.
00:19:00
These attackers have attempted
to conceal their identity. They're wearing hoods.
00:19:07
We can't see their faces. They're wearing face masks. But there are still
some details that
00:19:12
are visible in this video. I would like to enhance
those details by adjusting
the brightness and contrast
00:19:19
to get a better
look at the attacker that we see on the screen here. [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]
00:19:26
So although this
attacker has attempted to conceal his identity,
the jacket that he's wearing
00:19:33
has a distinct logo
on the left pocket. We can also see
some characteristics about the other clothing he's
wearing, the green pants.
00:19:44
It appears that there's
a green hooded sweatshirt or a green hooded shirt of some
sort under his black jacket.
00:19:52
It really appears that although
the attacker in the back seems to be wearing
gloves on both hands,
00:19:59
the attacker in front
seems to only be wearing one
glove, which means he likely left fingerprints
on this murder weapon.
00:20:08
So if this weapon
was ever found, there would likely be
fingerprints recovered that matched this suspect.
00:20:15
All of these details certainly
help the investigation. No one of these details will
necessarily positively identify
00:20:24
one of these suspects,
but every bit of detail that can be had is important. [DISTANT SIREN WAILING]
00:20:35
NARRATOR: The results
of Ronan's autopsy confirmed the cause
of his death. [DARK AMBIENT MUSIC]
00:20:42
ADE GEORGE: Dr. Randall
identified two stab wounds. The first stab wound penetrated
the right side of his abdomen
00:20:48
and went in 20 centimeters. And the second stab wound
actually penetrated his heart
00:20:54
and went into a depth
of 17 centimeters. It literally went
through his heart and almost came
out the other side.
00:21:03
[DRAMATIC MUSIC] JOE MILLINGTON:
So the following day, there was a lot of flowers.
00:21:14
It just shows like how
much Ronan was loved. I think the amount
of like, love that was
00:21:19
shown just through flowers-- like, Liverpool tops
is a massive one. There was a few Liverpool tops,
hoodies, candles, everything.
00:21:27
Like, it was a big effort
from like the whole community. NIKITA KANDA: It really
shows you Ronan's character
00:21:34
when every single
person around him, so his teachers, his friends,
and just anyone who's met him
00:21:40
has such amazing things
to say about him. Ronan was the least
deserving of anything
00:21:47
violent happening to him. Nobody on earth deserves
that and let alone somebody so sort of pure and innocent.
00:21:58
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] NARRATOR: As police
sift through thousands of hours of CCTV, they
make a breakthrough.
00:22:08
They identify the moment
when Ronan's attackers got into the red
getaway car and
00:22:14
capture its license plate. ADE GEORGE: That
registration number of that vehicle led us to the
name of a registered keeper and
00:22:24
a home address. And so I made the decision that
we should attend that address and arrest the driver
of that vehicle and
00:22:31
any other young males
in that address that may have been involved in the incident.
00:22:36
NARRATOR: Police arrest
the driver of the car and another young man
who they believe
00:22:41
was sitting in the front seat. They're taken
in for questioning but refused to talk.
00:22:50
[DRAMATIC MUSIC] BAL BUJARH: I think of Ronan
pretty much every single day. It was a joy and a delight
to be Ronan's tutor.
00:23:04
You know, he was modest. He was friendly. He was an intelligent
young man. And just a smashing,
smashing kid.
00:23:14
Just smashing kid, I think. What do you think
of the garden? POOJA KANDA: I think
it's beautiful.
00:23:21
I think it's so important. BAL BUJARH: It's just nice
to come out here and just take
00:23:28
a moment to think of Ronan. And I think it's been a
wonderful idea to put together.
00:23:34
I'm hoping it gets pupils
to ask those questions. What's the Peace Garden for?
00:23:39
Who was Ronan? What happened to him? And I think that's a way
of educating people around--
00:23:45
- Yes. --what's happened. And as you know, he was
a big Liverpool Football fan.
00:23:50
POOJA KANDA: Oh, yes. BAL BUJARH: I guess
it's quite fitting to use the Liverpool mantra
that, you'll never walk alone.
00:23:58
And that's
heartfelt. And I hope you sincerely understand that. - I do. I do.
00:24:06
[BIRDS CHIRPING] NARRATOR: As the police
investigation into Ronan's murder continues,
they get an unexpected break.
00:24:20
ADE GEORGE: I get
notified that somebody called Sukhman Shergill
was in the front office
00:24:24
at Bloxwich Police
Station with his uncle. He notified staff
that he had been present when Ronan had been
murdered the night before.
00:24:35
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] NARRATOR: 16-year-old
Sukhman admits he was at the scene but insists
he wasn't involved
00:24:42
in Ronan's stabbing. - We were able to determine
very early on that what he was saying was the lie.
00:24:50
We knew from CCTV
only two people were present
during that murder, and both were carrying weapons.
00:24:54
And so therefore it was a fair
assumption that actually, if for him to have been
there and be a witness,
00:24:59
he had to be that second
male at the incident. He was promptly arrested
on suspicion of murder.
00:25:07
[DISTANT SIREN WAILING] [DRAMATIC MUSIC] JOE MILLINGTON:
This is Mount Road. Up and down the street, there's
ribbons on the lampposts.
00:25:22
The ribbons basically
go from the start to the finish of the street. Anywhere you go on the street,
you'll see a purple ribbon.
00:25:30
It literally just symbolizes
what happened to Ronan and who he was. A few days after,
me and my mates
00:25:38
decided to come up to the
street to see Ronan's family. As we got to the bottom of the
street, we started walking up.
00:25:44
I remember hearing Ronan's
mom and sister screaming. To scream that loud, to the
point where I can hear it
00:25:50
from the bottom of the street,
and it's a long street, like, it is a really long road.
00:25:55
So to like, be
able to hear that, I knew that
the pain was insane. NARRATOR: In an effort
to get Sukhman to talk,
00:26:11
police show him the video
of Ronan's murder. Faced with the evidence, he
admits that a kid from school
00:26:19
owed him money, and he and a
friend set out to find him. But he continues
to claim that he wasn't
00:26:27
the one who stabbed Ronan. ADE GEORGE: Sukhman described
that he was actually running behind
the other suspect
00:26:35
and that he paused
slightly when he realized that the person
was not the individual that
00:26:40
owed him money. [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] But that the second
suspect, who he didn't name at that
particular moment in time,
00:26:48
had approached him
anyway and stabbed him. NARRATOR: With Sukhman
refusing to say more and
00:26:56
the identity of the other
attacker is still a mystery, police turned to his
school friends for help.
00:27:03
[UNSETTLING MUSIC] JOE MILLINGTON:
Sukhman was really close in our friend group.
00:27:12
And he was quite
close to Ronan. He used to be on PlayStation
with us when Ronan was on.
00:27:20
It was so weird seeing
someone going from like one of your mates to being
locked up for stabbing
00:27:25
one of your other mates. I think it was
the day after, we went to school for the school trip.
00:27:31
And I remember
like, we all just sat at the table trying to work
out who it could have been.
00:27:38
What made us notice
who it could have been was who didn't turn
up for the trip.
00:27:43
The two people that were
missing, one of the lads, the one that was in our friend
group, Sukhman, no one
00:27:48
really expected that. But Prabjeet, you thought,
yeah, this is a possibility. [UNSETTLING MUSIC]
00:27:56
Prabjeet wasn't the most
well behaved kid at school. I remember the school excluded
him just before the GCSEs
00:28:02
because he had a fight. And obviously, that just gave
him the opportunity to go and
00:28:06
do whatever he wanted to do. NARRATOR: Could Prabjeet be
the boy who stabbed Ronan?
00:28:15
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] ADE GEORGE: We start looking
at mobile phone evidence, so telecommunications data
between Sukhman and Prabjeet,
00:28:25
to see if there was any contact
between the two of them, to look at location
data, to find
00:28:29
out where that phone was
during the time of the offense. NARRATOR: The search through
mobile data pays off,
00:28:37
linking Sukhman
to 16-year-old Prabjeet the night Ronan was killed. - That gave me
reasonable suspicion
00:28:45
that he was involved
in this offense, that he was that
second offender. He was arrested
on suspicion of murder.
00:28:56
[BIRDS CHIRPING] [CONTEMPLATIVE MUSIC] - I guess one
of the things that really angers me is when
they took Ronan's life,
00:29:09
they took away that
potential, the ability. What was Ronan going to be
in 20 years' time, in 30 years
00:29:14
time?
We don't know. But he would have been-- he would have been
somebody who would
00:29:19
have made a contribution
to the world, the community, the society he lives in. And that was taken from him.
00:29:25
And that's wrong
on every single level. POOJA KANDA: Yes, I
still look at his photo,
00:29:31
and I look in his eyes. What a life he had in his eyes,
the twinkle he had in his eyes,
00:29:39
the happiness he had
in his smile, the kindness he had in his heart. In all honesty--
00:29:52
--I am still stuck on that day. And I will always be
the rest of my life there in that corner.
00:30:05
[OMINOUS MUSIC] ADE GEORGE: After
Prabjeet was arrested, I deployed officers
to his home address
00:30:13
in order to carry out a search. We didn't recover
the murder weapon, and we didn't
recover any clothing.
00:30:23
However, what we did recover
in the bin of his property was some packaging
for a Ninja sword set.
00:30:32
NARRATOR: Detectives track
down the post office where the weapons were collected.
00:30:40
ADE GEORGE: So this is
footage of Prabjeet Veadhesa leaving his home address
and walking to the post office.
00:30:52
And this is him
walking back home now. And you see, obviously,
when he goes out,
00:30:57
he's not carrying anything. And when he comes back,
he's got this parcel.
00:31:01
And we know that
there was a number of weapons in that package. SOHOM DAS: When Prabjeet
was identified as a suspect,
00:31:11
he absolutely fitted the
profile of somebody that would commit violence with knives.
00:31:16
You've got somebody
who seems actually quite obsessed
with owning knives. I mean, he had an entire
collection of them.
00:31:22
And he has a history
of anti-social behavior, getting into fights, getting
expelled from school.
00:31:28
So it's not surprising
to me that this escalated into eventual violence. NARRATOR: Police
then track Prabjeet
00:31:37
and Sukhman's movements
the day Ronan was killed. [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] ADE GEORGE: This was
about 6:34, 6:35.
00:31:49
So then you see Sukhman
Shergill arriving at Prabjeet's address. You see him walking across
the field towards him.
00:31:57
He's wearing a long, sort
of knee-length quilted jacket. He's wearing a face
mask and his hoods up.
00:32:06
NARRATOR: Sukhman and Prabjeet
can be seen leaving the house later that evening.
00:32:11
It's picked up
on a camera next door. ADE GEORGE: The time is now, on
the home surveillance footage,
00:32:19
at 19:29 hours. So they've been in Prabjeet's
address just short of an hour.
00:32:26
As Prabjeet leaves
the home address, he's got his head down, looking
towards the floor, which
00:32:33
I say is a clear effort to
disguise himself from a camera that maybe he knew the next
door neighbors had.
00:32:42
NARRATOR: This footage
of Prabjeet and Sukhman together, wearing
the same clothes
00:32:46
as the men who attacked
Ronan, along with the footage of Prabjeet collecting
the Ninja sword,
00:32:53
is crucial evidence. [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] ADE GEORGE: We then set
about interviewing Prabjeet.
00:33:05
Initially, he gave
a no-comment interview and didn't give us
any sort of account
00:33:10
as to what had happened. NARRATOR: However,
when Prabjeet finds out that Ronan's murder
was caught on camera
00:33:19
and that Sukhman is already
in custody, he decides to talk. - He admitted to being
the person that stabbed Ronan--
00:33:29
[DISCORDANT TUNE] --that he and his
friend Sukhman had been to enforce on a debt
that was owed to Sukhman,
00:33:38
and that Ronan was not
the intended target. Their intention had
only been to threaten
00:33:45
or scare him in order
to pay back the money. [STREET BUZZING] SOHOM DAS: The reasons
why some children carry
00:34:00
knives are well established. Sometimes it's down to status. So they want to intimidate
others within their peer group
00:34:08
and as a sign of gaining
respect through dominance. In a situation where a peer
group is known to carry knives,
00:34:15
it's not difficult to see
how incidents can escalate because they often can
be incited or encouraged
00:34:21
to use that knife,
because if they don't, then they might be seen as weak. [DARK AMBIENT MUSIC]
00:34:29
ADE GEORGE: What's sad is
that it was a true case of mistaken identity. [CAR WHOOSHING]
00:34:38
Ronan was not killed
because he was a target. He wasn't killed because he'd
been in dispute with either
00:34:46
of the two suspects. He was killed because they
mistook him for somebody else. [CAMERA CLICKS]
00:35:01
[CONTEMPLATIVE MUSIC] NIKITA KANDA: That night,
the police rang up. And they said, we've
charged Prabjeet Veadhesa
00:35:13
and Sukhman Shergill. I just remember me, my mom, and
my dad looking at each other,
00:35:21
like, who the hell
are these people? The whole thing was
just so, so confusing. [CAR WHOOSHES]
00:35:35
JOE MILLINGTON: At the funeral,
my whole friend group was there. And when we went to,
like, the crematorium,
00:35:41
and we were stood
in a room, and, like, you got the music
on and everything, that was when it hit me.
00:35:48
I don't think I properly
cried until the funeral. And then it was just
all hell let loose.
00:35:55
But yeah, it was--
it was mental. [FRANTIC MUSIC] NARRATOR: Almost 10 months
after Ronan's murder,
00:36:05
four young men go on trial for
his killing, Prabjeet Veadhesa, Sukhman Shergill,
and the driver and
00:36:14
passenger in the red
getaway car for assisting in the attack. DAVID MASON: There
were four defendants
00:36:26
in the trial, two who
got out of the car and two who
remained in the car. [DARK AMBIENT MUSIC]
00:36:32
All four defendants pleaded
not guilty to murder. The defense of the two
in the vehicle,
00:36:40
who didn't get out
of the vehicle, was that they had no idea
what was gonna happen.
00:36:44
But as far as the two who'd
been on the street, Veadhesa and Shergill, they were
both saying that they only
00:36:50
intended to scare
the young man that they were chasing up the street. They can say that
for all they like,
00:36:57
but the fact is,
Ronan was stabbed twice, very lengthy
stab wounds, including one through his heart.
00:37:04
And you don't do that if you're
just trying to scare somebody. [UNSETTLING MUSIC]
00:37:10
NIKITA KANDA: Mr.
Mason's opening statement was very powerful
because he showed everybody
00:37:15
the truth straight away. He showed the jury the CCTV. Everybody looked horrified
at what they had just seen.
00:37:28
I mean, if you think
about it, the jury are just 12 normal people. And you're literally seeing
a child's death in front of you
00:37:35
with a sword, and that
child's screaming for help. That's horrible. That is horrific.
00:37:44
DAVID MASON: The murder
weapon was a Ninja sword. The blade was at least
a foot in length,
00:37:50
and it was razor sharp. The police managed to obtain
an identical weapon, because they knew what
it was that Veadhesa
00:37:59
had ordered because they
found the packaging. Part of the evidence
was footage of Mr. Veadhesa going
to his local post office
00:38:09
to pick up the weapons
that he had ordered online. It was legal to buy
such a weapon if you
00:38:16
were over 18 years of age. Of course, he wasn't. He had to use false
identification to purchase it.
00:38:27
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] NICK BARREIRO: So we're looking
at a portion of the audio track
00:38:39
from this video, particularly
the portion where Ronan is walking up the street
and the attackers are
00:38:47
approaching him from behind. I wanted to enhance this audio
to see if there was anything
00:38:54
said, anything missed that
you can't hear when listening to the unenhanced audio.
00:39:03
So I've applied a simple
gain adjustment to increase the amplitude of the audio.
00:39:11
[CAR WHOOSHING] The only things I hear are
the vehicle noise, a little bit of wind noise, and footsteps.
00:39:25
I don't hear any dialogue. I don't hear any yelling. These attackers approached
Ronan silently from behind.
00:39:34
Sometimes with recordings,
what you see is what you get. No matter what we do
to them to enhance them,
00:39:41
we're not gonna extract any
more detail because there is no more detail there.
00:39:46
The audio makes it clear
that nothing was said, nothing was yelled at Ronan
before this attack.
00:39:53
They simply ran up
to him and attacked him. NARRATOR: The trial
takes five weeks.
00:40:07
After all the evidence
is presented to the jury, they make their decision. - After 2 hours and 13
minutes of deliberation,
00:40:16
the jury returned
verdicts of murder against both Prabjeet
Veadhesa and Sukhman Shergill.
00:40:27
Prabjeet Veadhesa
was sentenced to 18 years, so life imprisonment
with a minimum term
00:40:32
of 18 years. And Sukhman Shergill was
sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term
of 16 years, which
00:40:38
is in line with sentencing
guidelines for convictions of murder for juveniles. POOJA KANDA: I remember
we heard guilty.
00:40:49
My husband screamed
in that courtroom. He said, yes! You took our child. You deserve to be
in that jail forever.
00:41:03
I'll never forgive them
for taking my child's life. The impact is forever.
00:41:13
NARRATOR: Prabjeet is sentenced
for the actual stabbing and Sukhman for assisting
him in the crime.
00:41:21
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] DAVID MASON: They found the
other two, who were in the car and stayed in the car,
not guilty of murder.
00:41:35
[UNSETTLING MUSIC] To put it bluntly, they were
absolutely torn apart by this, I mean literally
ripped to shreds.
00:41:51
You can't underestimate
the effect that this has on a family. We can all sympathize.
00:41:56
We can all understand or think
we understand how they feel, but you never, ever, ever
would really understand
00:42:03
how much it destroys a family. Apart from
the brutality of it and the loss of life
of a young boy,
00:42:12
one thing that shocks
a lot of people was the ease with which young
men are able to obtain weapons
00:42:18
like this, the ease with which
the companies who provide them, provide them without
really checking that
00:42:28
hard as to the validity
of the person buying that particular weapon. A bit of ID will do. thank
you very much, in the post,
00:42:35
to get it the next day. Terrifying, really. [MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: In the wake
of Ronan's death,
00:42:51
Pooja and her family have
campaigned to ban the sale of so-called Ninja swords. [CAMERA CLICKS]
00:43:00
SOHOM DAS: In the horrific
aftermath of this tragedy, the family are trying
to extract something positive.
00:43:06
And one way they've
done this is by campaigning against
these knives being available for other children.
00:43:13
Turning these powerful
emotions, like anger and grief, into something that's
more socially positive.
00:43:21
POOJA KANDA: I just knew
that I had to do something. Otherwise, I failed Ronan. [CAMERA CLICKS]
00:43:27
These weapons are lethal. They have no purpose
in our society. [CAMERA CLICKS] NARRATOR: Pooja's campaign
reached Parliament.
00:43:39
[MUSIC PLAYING] ALEX NORRIS: We
would broaden the ban to include a wider
range of weapons
00:43:45
and to toughen existing rules
on serration and length. And that would mean
finally banning
00:43:50
blades such as Ninja
swords, the weapon that killed Ronan Kanda. NARRATOR: It resulted
in what's known as Ronan's law.
00:44:01
- The order before us today
amends the Criminal Justice Act 1988 and adds the Ninja
swords to the list
00:44:08
of prohibited
offensive weapons. NARRATOR: The sale
of Ninja swords, like the one that killed Ronan
is now illegal in the UK.
00:44:19
[CAMERA CLICKS] [CONTEMPLATIVE MUSIC] POOJA KANDA: It
gives me satisfaction that the Ronan's
law will protect
00:44:27
many other children's lives. [CAMERA CLICKS] DAVID MASON:
Obviously, anything
00:44:32
that reduces
the chance of people being stabbed in the way Ronan
was can only be a good thing.
00:44:41
ADE GEORGE: This was
an absolutely tragic incident for the family. And it's completely
torn them apart.
00:44:47
And what he's really
admiring to see is how they've used
such a horrific incident
00:44:53
to actually do some good. So I think that's
testament to the family that they're able
to take what's happened
00:45:01
and actually not just
think about themselves but think about other people. And we should really
admire them for that.
00:45:10
NARRATOR: In recognition
of her campaign, in 2025, Pooja was presented with
an OBE by King Charles.
00:45:18
It's one of the UK's
highest honors. POOJA KANDA: I didn't
expect nothing.
00:45:26
I did not expect
from anyone anything. I did not know I was
doing anything for anyone.
00:45:32
All I just knew it was wrong. And I went straight
up to Ronan's picture, that photo with the smile,
picked it up, and I kissed him.
00:45:48
And I gave the OBE to him. That is for him. He's got his mother's
name, but it's all for him.
00:46:01
Everything is for him. [THEME MUSIC] [AUDIO LOGO]