A 17-year-old who adopted what his defence described as a “faux gangster persona” after being influenced online has been given a life sentence with a minimum term of 14 years for murdering 16-year-old Joshua Ingram over a £20 drug debt.
The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, attacked Joshua with a 19cm-long blade hidden in his tracksuit bottoms at Seaford railway station in East Sussex on September 10 2025.
He had pleaded guilty to manslaughter but was found guilty of murder by jurors following a trial at Hove Crown Court. He was also sentenced for possessing a knife.
Sentencing him, Mr Justice Bourne KC said Joshua was “a popular young man with all his life before him”.
The judge said the alleged debt could not justify the attack.
“It seems that Josh Ingram owed you about £20,” he said. “That, of course, cannot begin to explain what you did. It would not provide even the smallest excuse for hurting someone, let alone for attacking them with a large knife.”
The prosecution told jurors that the defendant was a “small-time drug dealer” who had supplied Joshua, from Newhaven, with drugs during the summer of 2025 but had not been paid.
Snapchat messages read in court included one in which the teenager said: “Josh will perish if I don’t get my f****** money, that’s a fact and he knows this.”
He also wrote: “I’m ready to sit in a prison cell for 30 years over a £20 sheet.”
Colin Aylott KC, defending, said online influences had led the defendant to adopt a “disturbing language and disturbing persona”.
“It was all rather pathetic and reflects the immaturity of the defendant,” he said.
Mr Aylott described the defendant as a young man who had immediately recognised the gravity of his actions and had tried to begin the process of rehabilitation.
In a victim impact statement read to the court, Joshua’s mother, Yvette Bullen, described her son as “kind, caring, cheeky, loveable rogue, great friend, goofball but also challenging and a little sod – all the traits that made Josh, Josh”.
She said Joshua was a young person with hopes, dreams and a future, adding: “Josh was loved. His life mattered and ours will never be the same again.”
Ms Bullen said she lived with guilt because, on the Friday before the killing, Joshua had asked her for £20 and she had refused.
“That’s a parenting decision I will regret for the rest of my life,” she said.
She told the court that Joshua, who was training to be a bricklayer, was taken away on a stretcher after the attack. She said she was only able to kiss him on the forehead after he had died because he was a “crime scene”.
Calling for the killing to serve as a warning about knife crime, Ms Bullen said: “His life was worth so much more than £20.”
She urged young people to think before carrying a knife and called on anyone who knew someone was carrying one to report it rather than assist them.
Two other teenagers, aged 17 and 15, were convicted of assisting an offender and sentenced to youth rehabilitation orders with one year of supervision.
The judge told them that detention was a last resort for people of their age. He said their conduct, although very serious, was “far, far removed from the murder itself”, and referred to positive information presented about them.
Applications from the press, including the Press Association, to lift the anonymity of the teenager convicted of Joshua’s murder will be decided at a later date.
The case was reported by the Press Association, citing proceedings at Hove Crown Court.
