Teenage girl walks free after stabbing to death 17-year-old rival

Chelsea Bennett, who admitted stabbing a teenage rival to death in a fight over a boy walked free from court after being cleared of murder.

Bennett, 19, knifed 17-year-old Sian Simpson with a 10-inch blade during a fight between the two rival girl gangs. But she claimed she acted in self-defence.

Yesterday the victim's family erupted in anger, swearing and screaming 'bitch' as Bennet sat shaking and sobbing in the dock upon being cleared of murder and manslaughter at the Old Bailey.

The court heard how a petty squabble between the girls over the 'attentions' of a teenage boy who had got two of their friends pregnant escalated into violence.

The row centred on Nathan Davidson, who fathered a  baby boy with Miss Simpson's cousin Chantelle Campbell, before beginning a relationship with Bennett's friend Danielle Cooke, who was heavily pregnant with his child.

The court heard that Mr Davidson had gone to Miss Campbell's flat to see his son when Miss Cooke, incensed that he was there, turned up accompanied by Bennett.

The girls traded threats and gestures from a balcony and tempers were 'riding high', said prosecutor Brian Altman.

The mothers of Mr Davidson and Miss Campbell attempted to calm the situation.

But when Sian and her cousin Chantelle, who had armed herself with a kitchen knife, went downstairs to confront the girls, several scuffles broke out.

Bennett stabbed her rival in the chest with a steak knife, which she grabbed from the floor after coming under attack from the Sian Campbell.

The A-level student, who dreamed of becoming an accountant, was left lying in a pool of blood surrounded by a crowd of young girls screaming and shouting at each other.

The knife blow pierced her lung and heart causing 'shock and massive internal bleeding' and Sian died in hospital less than 45 minutes later on June 16 last year.

Giving evidence Bennett said Sian, who was nicknamed 'Pitbull', had come at her with a knife first so she grabbed a blade to defend herself.

She told the jury: 'She had the knife and she kept coming. She jumped on my back and started punching my head.

'I saw the knife on the pavement. I picked it up. I thought she would be scared. I thought she would stop running towards me.

'Someone shouted she had been stabbed and I didn't even know.'

 “I wanted to write a letter to Sian's family. I wanted to say maybe they can understand how scared I was and why I picked up that knife and I didn't even know that I had done it.”

Bennett was injured in the neck and the arm and was also cut on the hand when she tried to grab the knife.

After the stabbing, Miss Bennett locked herself in Miss Cooke's car before the vehicle was mobbed, with girls kicking out and hurling bricks at her. Police arrested her at the scene, when she pulled the brown-handled steak knife, used to stab Miss Simpson, from under the car seat.

Despite Sian's death the two rival groups of women have continued their feud and a tribute website has been taken over, with girls on both sides abusing one another. Miss Bennett's friends have written messages insulting Miss Campbell and blaming her and Mr Davidson for the death. Miss Simpson's friends and relatives have threatened Miss Bennett. Under one message, “halt the fussing and respect the dead”, a friend of Miss Simpson's pleaded: “This site is for condolences … not tit 4 tat about who did what with who. Please allow the poor girl to rest in peace … have you no shame? It is apparent this ‘dispute' will cease in another loss of life. Because u so-called pals seem bloodthirsty!”

Outside court, furious relatives accused the judge of racism, even though race was not an issue in the fight between the black victim and Bennett, who is white.

Miss Simpson's aunt, Sharon Fairclough, spoke out against knife crime in a statement outside court, flanked by Sian's mother, Mikaala Fairclough, and the girl's grandmother and other relatives. She said: “Our baby Sian Simpson was a good girl, a believer in what's right. She had a right to life. It is time parents, guardians and responsible adults took back our roles as disciplinarians. We, as the bearers and carers of these children, must instil morals in the youth of today. Sian Simpson, loving sister, daughter, granddaughter and niece, was a good, well-mannered humble young woman.”

She said Miss Simpson had received an acceptance letter from a university shortly after she died. “She was a good girl doing a good deed,” Ms Fairclough added. “She tried to stop the violence. She was there to protect, she was not in a girl gang.”

After Miss Simpson's relatives stormed from court, the Recorder of London, Judge Peter Beaumont QC told jurors: 'Jurors don't chose the cases they try.

'You are given a case to try and you are asked to make important decisions about people you have never seen before.

'You are asked to do so responsibly and carefully and in my judgement you have done so.'