Drug-taxing revenge plot led to Daneiko Ferguson being stabbed to death on Harehills street, court hears

Deneiko Ferguson, 27, bled to death after being stabbed multiple times and left at the side of the road on Compton Street in the early hours of February 15. He was found by a passing taxi driver and was taken to hospital, but died a short time later.

Alga Lutondo and Halgon Randon are standing trial at Leeds Crown Court accused of murdering Mr Ferguson.

Opening the case this afternoon for the Crown, Mark McKone KC said the pair had been riding bicycles and had gone looking for Mr Ferguson that night. It came after Maria Thomas – a dealer selling on behalf of Lutondo – phoned him to say that an hour before Mr Ferguson had “kicked down her door” on Cowper Terrace, Harehills, demanding she hand over the drugs . Known as “taxing”, it involves people targeting known dealers to take their drugs and money from them.

Mr McKone said that street CCTV picked up Mr Ferguson leaving the Cowper Terrace area at around 2am, having been on the street for “up to 14 minutes”. The court heard that Lutondo then “recruited” Randon to hunt down Mr Ferguson to exact revenge. When they found him shortly before 3am, they stabbed him five times.

He was stabbed in the head, torso, pelvis and in the groin – the latter cutting his femoral artery and causing “catastrophic bleeding” that led to his death.

Mr McKone told the jury that Lutondo and Randon sought to blame each other for the killing, but he said: “The Crown says it does not matter who did the actual stabbing. They were part of a joint enterprise. They formed a joint plan to search for the victim in order to stab him.

"They left him bleeding to death without getting him any help, which supports the Crown’s case that they both wanted him seriously injured or killed.”

Mr McKone said that Lutondo was a drug dealer who sent dozens of messages advertising drugs for sale in the early hours of February 15, but then later discarded his phone shortly after the killing and had plans to “flee the country”. Police also found discarded clothes in a wheelie bin at his home.

Lutondo travelled to Heathrow three days later with plans to fly to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Africa, where he is originally from, via Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, but was arrested at the airport. Randon was arrested on February 23, eight days after the killing. Both gave a no-comment interview to police.

Lutondo, age 32, formerly of Berkeley Crescent, Harehills and 42-year-old Randon, of Brown Hill Terrace, Harehills, were later charged with murder.

They both also deny a charge with conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm (GBH), along with the third defendant, 34-year-old Maria Thomas, now of Manor Road, Horsforth. She appeared in the dock alongside her co-accused today.

The trial continues and is expected to last around three weeks.