A two-week trial at the Old Bailey has heard how Deonte Mowatt-Slater was stabbed to death in Archway on October 22 2024

A JURY has found a man guilty of manslaughter for killing a teenage boy in Archway last year – but he has been cleared of murder charges.

Francie McCarthy, 22, was on trial for the murder of Deonte Mowatt-Slater, 16, who died from stab wounds near Archway’s Elthorne Estate shortly after midnight on October 22.

Jurors returned their verdict yesterday (Thursday) at the Old Bailey after a two-week trial, finding McCarthy guilty of manslaughter, but not murder.

On the night he was killed, Deonte was riding his moped in Courtauld Road when he crossed paths with McCarthy.

Deonte had been visiting his grandmother and gone out on his motorcycle to get food, while McCarthy, a crack cocaine and heroin dealer, was walking home from a drug deal in Elthorne Park, the court heard.

The two did not know each other, jurors were told, but a brief altercation between them – out of sight of CCTV cameras – left Deonte with fatal stab wounds to the neck and chest before he crashed his bike into a lamppost.

There were no eyewitnesses or CCTV of the actual attack, but CCTV footage played in court showed McCarthy shouting: “Come here!” and running after Deonte as he rode away.

After the crash McCarthy ran away, and Deonte died later at the scene despite the efforts of emergency services.

When McCarthy took the stand earlier this week, he told the court he had stabbed Deonte accidentally and in self defence when the teenager allegedly “drove at” him on his motorbike.

He said Deonte had slowed his bike and looked at McCarthy before steering his moped onto the pavement towards him.

Police at the scene

McCarthy demonstrated from the witness box how he had waved a knife around to scare Deonte away, he said.

“I thought he was going to run me over and then try and stab me or shoot me,” said McCarthy, who “assumed” Deonte had a weapon – though he had not in fact been carrying one. “He was all in black, he had a balaclava on, I thought I was going to die,” he said.

McCarthy told the court he had carried a knife for his own protection because Elthorne was “a dangerous area”, and he knew people who had been attacked and killed there previously.

He said he did not realise his weapon had made contact with Deonte until he saw blood on the blade as he ran away.

He threw the knife in a bin on his way home to Warrender Road, Tufnell Park, before changing his clothes and throwing those away too, he told the court.

“I realised I had stabbed someone and I was just trying to get rid of everything I had with me,” he said, adding that he didn’t know Deonte had died until later that night, at which point his first calls were to his parents.

He then went to Romford to “lie low”, and was arrested on October 25.

Defence barrister Sean Larkin KC told jurors that McCarthy had gone to Elthorne Park that night “not looking for any trouble”, and it was “sheer chance” that he encountered Deonte on his bike.

Mr Larkin said: “If he wanted to kill or to ensure that serious harm was caused to Deonte, the time to do it would be after the crash. Because Deonte is no longer on the bike, Deonte is on the floor and vulnerable. And so if Mr McCarthy – the prosecution seems to suggest – was hell-bent on murder or inflicting serious injuries, this was the chance to do it. But he didn’t, because he was now safe… and he ran.”

Earlier in the trial, prosecuting barrister Edward Brown KC suggested that McCarthy’s decision to run after Deonte as he drove away on his moped showed “pure anger at work”, adding: “You knew perfectly well you had stabbed him, not once, but twice, Mr McCarthy.”

But McCarthy told the court that it was “adrenaline” that made him give chase.

Challenging the defendant’s claim that he hadn’t realised he had stabbed Deonte, Mr Brown pointed to medical evidence given during the trial that showed the injury to Deonte’s chest required “severe” force.
McCarthy is due to be sentenced on October 30.