LONDON—A drill rapper who killed a 15-year-old boy after murder charges had been dropped in another case has been given a second life sentence.
Nyron Jean-Baptiste, 22, was a member of the M20 gang, which is based in Penge, southeast London. He performed several drill songs as MFace.
Jean-Baptiste stabbed to death Michael Jonas, 17, in Betts Park, Penge, after he was lured there on Nov. 2, 2017.
Charges against Jean-Baptiste and several others were discontinued for a lack of evidence in January 2018 and in November of that year he murdered a 15-year-old boy.
In August 2019 Jean-Baptiste, who was then 18, was given a life sentence—with a minimum of 19 years—for the murder of Jai Hughes, who was stabbed to death near a chicken shop in Bellingham, southeast London on Nov. 1, 2018.
While he was in prison more evidence came in to link him and the others to the murder of Jonas.
In October 2022 six men were charged with the 2017 murder and, after a trial last year, they were all convicted and on Tuesday given life sentences.
Jean-Baptiste was told he would have to serve 31 years.
Divon Henry-Campbell, 23, was jailed for a minimum of 18 years, while Sarraviho Smith, 23, was given 17 years.
Jamie Marshall, 22, was jailed for 13 years; Jason Smith, 20, got 12-and-a-half years; and Ryan Brown, 21, got 12 years.
Sentencing the killers on Tuesday, Judge Peter Rook, KC told them: “You deprived Michael Jonas of his most precious possession, life itself ... He was defenceless, on his own, and completely outnumbered.”
Gang ‘Wrongly Believed’ Victim Was a ‘Snitch’
Prosecutor John Price, KC said it was possible Jonas was killed because the gang “wrongly believed he was an informant or snitch.”Outside court Mr. Price told The Epoch Times that Jonas had not been a gang member, but Jean-Baptiste and the others wrongly formed the impression he had informed on them.
Mr. Price said: “In September 2017 Michael Jonas was sentenced at Croydon Crown Court, along with another man, called Parnell, for wounding that arose out of the theft of a high-value bicycle. He was given a community sentence while Parnell was given a jail sentence.”
He said Parnell was a friend of Jean-Baptiste and “people jumped to the conclusion” Jonas was a “snitch” when in fact he had been sentenced for a less serious offence.
Mr. Price said the six were originally charged in late 2017 but those charges were discontinued on Jan. 15, 2018 and they were freed.
But he said a key piece of evidence which was of “critical importance”—GPRS data found in Henry-Campbell’s phone which proved he was in Betts Park at the crucial time of the killing—later emerged, and in October 2022 the six were charged again with the Jonas murder.
Jean-Baptiste ‘Embedded in Knife Gang Culture’
When Jean-Baptiste was sentenced for the Hughes murder in 2019, the court heard he was a key figure in the M20 gang, and when he was finally arrested in December 2018 he was in possession of a “large hunting knife.”The judge who sentenced him for the murder of Mr. Hughes said he was “embedded in knife gang culture.”
Judge Anuja Dhir, KC said, “At the time you were a member of the M20 gang, or an associated gang, and you were embedded in knife gang culture.”
She said Jean-Baptiste already had four convictions for knife crimes before the murder of Mr. Hughes and had been involved in 13 violent incidents in custody at the time of the sentencing in August 2019.
Jean-Baptiste had appeared in several “gang videos on YouTube” and wrote violent lyrics for drill rap songs.
The court heard Jean-Baptiste jumped out of a car, ran towards Mr. Hughes, and stabbed him once in the chest, leaving an unsurvivable wound which was five inches deep.
Judge Dhir said, “Jai Hughes did not stand a chance of surviving this senseless, brutal, and ruthless attack.”
She said the victim had no gang affiliation and was just “standing in a street.”
On Monday, Michael Jonas’s mother, Petrona Anderson, said she passed out when she was told of her son’s death. She said he was killed in a park where she had taken him to play when he was a toddler.
His father, Michael Jonas senior, said the killing had taken such a toll on him he had had to give up his job as a London bus driver.
