Ninja Sword Murder | Death Comes Knocking | Forensic Files

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

When teen Ronan Kanda is stabbed to death with a ninja sword, the doorbell camera shows a small red car stalking him. Police discover his murder is a tragic case of mistaken identity.

This true crime series delves into the chilling stories of homicide investigations where crucial evidence is captured on doorbell camera or home security footage.

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Brief Summary

Ronan Kanda, 16, was murdered in a mistaken identity stabbing, leading to a community campaign for weapon bans.

Key points

The Aftermath of Violence. Pooja arrives at the crime scene, desperate to see her son.
A Tragic Discovery. Nikita learns of her brother Ronan's death while in Greece.
Community Mourning. The community comes together to honor Ronan after his tragic death.
A Break in the Case. Police receive a tip from a witness present at the murder scene.
Emotional Courtroom Reaction. Pooja Kanda expresses her anguish in court after the verdict against her son's killers.
Ronan's Law Passed. The sale of Ninja swords is now illegal in the UK, a direct result of Pooja Kanda's campaign.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

How could I leave my son on the road?

Pooja reflects on her son lying on the street.

6:39WatchMar 26, 2026

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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