Five teenagers jailed for schoolboy's gang murder

LONDON (Reuters) - Five teenagers were jailed on Friday for their part in the stabbing to death of a 14-year old boy in east London last year.

Paul Erhahon was stabbed through the heart by a seven-inch blade near his home in Leytonstone in a gang attack last April.

A 15-year-old friend with him was stabbed five times and left for dead but survived.

Erhahon bled to death in his mother's arms a few yards from his home after he refused to submit to being robbed by gang, who were carrying knives, a samurai sword, baseball bats and a bike chain.

The judge, Mr Justice Keith, said the gang and knife culture that led to Erhahon's death were "dreadful."

"Almost every week we read of yet another young life lost as a result of the use of knives on our streets by teenagers like you," he told the youths as he passed sentence at the Old Bailey.

Earlier on Friday another Old Bailey judge had sentenced five other youths for the gang murder of another London schoolboy, 16-year-old Kodjo Yenga.

Erhahon and Yenga were among more than 25 teenagers murdered in London last year in an escalation of violent attacks among youths.

Their murders had been described by then Prime Minister Prime Minister Tony Blair as "tragic beyond belief".