Islington News: Kyrie Hylton | Sentence Reduction | Confession | Stabbing

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Islington Tribune - by DAVID ST GEORGE
Published: 20 March 2009

Reduction in sentence for ‘ferocious’ teenage knife killer

THE teenage brother of X-Factor contestant Rachel Hylton was this week given a one-year reduction in his sentence after confessing to the fatal stabbing of a love rival.
Kyrie Hylton, 18, wore a “Phantom of the Opera” mask as a disguise when he ambushed his victim, according to Mark Fenhalls, prosecuting at the Old Bailey.
Hylton knifed law student Yusufu Miiro nine times outside the home of the 18-year-old girl they were both seeing. He discarded the white plastic mask as he fled.
Police found it hanging on a tree branch at Wood Street rail station where he caught a train back to his home in Seven Sisters Road.
Hylton was covered in his victim’s blood when he left the train at Highbury and Islington Station, close to midnight.
The knife was plunged so hard into the victim’s skull that it penetrated the brain.
Hylton, unemployed, who admitted murder, fled the scene in St David’s Court, Walthamstow, East London, leaving Rochelle Sinclair to find her bloodsoaked friend dying on her doorstep.
Mr Miiro, 20, from nearby Leyton, studying criminology at Middlesex University, was one of four young men who were victims of knife murder in London within days in July 2007. Described as “arrogant and violent”, Hylton boasted of his knowledge of knives and guns.
Going by the street name “Kountry”, he gave himself up to police on August 6 last year, several days after the killing.
The “broken-hearted” family of Mr Miiro were in court to see Hylton sentenced by Judge Timothy Pontius who told him: “There is no doubt you went out having deliberately armed yourself with a knife.
“You intended to kill him.”
An order which had granted Hylton anonymity because of his age – 17 at the time – was lifted in the public interest. The judge added: “This was an attack of horrifying ferocity.”
A minimum 16-year term of a life sentence was reviewed this week by the judge who then cut the period to 15 years.

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