The Teflon teenager who beat murder rap twice during gang feuds
Most people get through their whole lives without being accused of a serious crime so to be accused of murder twice before reaching the age of 19 must be some kind of warped achievement.
And to beat the rap twice is even more extraordinary.
But that is what has happened to Kaleel Nyeila, who was acquitted in June 2021 of the murder of Leon Maxwell.
It came 26 months after he was acquitted of murdering Jason Isaacs.
Because he was never convicted the police have never released his mugshot, so there is no available photo of him.
So who is Nyeila and what does his story tell us about gang crime in London?
At his second murder trial Nyeila went into the witness box and testified about his life and his descent into crime.
He lived in Orchard Gate, a peaceful road a stone’s throw from Sudbury Town tube station in north-west London, where semi-detached houses sell for up to £550,000.
But by the age of 15 he was working as a “runner” for a gang in nearby Rayners Lane.
Nyeila said he earned around £200 a week taking cannabis to customers.
Asked by prosecutor Catherine Pattison QC why he did it, he replied: “I was foolish and I wanted to earn money.”
He said he later moved up to become a dealer and would earn up to £400 a week.
The Rayners Lane gang developed a bitter rivalry with youths in neighbouring Northolt, who have become known as the Ngang and were part of a gang alliance known as 156 from the Southall, Northolt and Greenford postcodes.
In April 2017 an Ngang drill rapper called Teewhiz - real name Abdullahi Tarabi - was stabbed to death in Northolt.
Six months later a 17-year-old Rayners Lane rapper called Teerose - whose real name was Tamba Momodu - was acquitted at the Old Bailey of murdering Teewhiz.
Remember those names.
It was never clear if 18-year-old Jason Isaacs (pictured), was an Ngang member but in November 2016 he travelled from his home in Northolt to King’s Road, Harrow – Rayners Lane gang territory – and took a selfie on Instagram in which he wrote: “Lurk round a K tryna leave mans head on the curb.”
That selfie, seen by the Rayners Lane gang as provocation, signed Jason’s death warrant.
In November 2017 Jason was attacked as he walked home from a friend’s house late at night.
Four men on two mopeds chased Jason up an alley in Northolt and stabbed him. He collapsed in the front garden of a house and died in hospital three days later.
It was later alleged Nyeila was one of the four men involved in the attack.
But in late 2017 Nyeila had “problems” with older members of the Rayners Lane gang after a dispute about some drugs.
Instead of quitting the drugs game altogether, he upped sticks and began dealing cannabis in Wealdstone, where he somehow hooked up with the Greyset Gang.
By the spring of 2018 he was thick as thieves with the gang’s leader, Saharded Hassan, who was 27, and other Greyset members who were closer to his age – Irwin Constable, Rajae Heslop, Abdi Karama, Armani Ogilvie-Pitt, and Samuel Agyeman.
The Greyset Gang had a “beef” with the Queensbury Boys, whose turf was a mile or so to the east, near the quaint-sounding Honeypot Lane.
Nyeila posted a video of himself and a friend driving around Queensbury and it was alleged this had been an attempt to goad the Queensbury Boys.
At his trial he denied he was aware of any gang rivalry and said: “My generation are always taking video and posting it on social media. I know it looks pointless.”
At 9.02pm on 1 May 2018 Leon Maxwell, a 38-year-old with ties to the Queensbury Boys, was shot dead outside Queensbury tube station. The killer was a pillion passenger on a moped.
Maxwell (pictured above) was a 20-stone bodybuilder known by the street names Sykes or 2Swift.
In 2004 Maxwell had been convicted of killing Patrick Fitzharris, 22, after an argument about £75 worth of drugs.
He was jailed for life with a minimum tariff of 12 years.
Detectives did not believe Maxwell himself was the target. The Greyset Gang simply wanted to kill any Queensbury Boys member to send out a message.
A few months later Nyeila was arrested by detectives investigating the Jason Isaacs murder.
He went on trial at the Old Bailey along with a former friend in the Rayners Lane gang, Joel Amade.
Amade was convicted of murder in April 2019 and jailed for life but Nyeila was found not guilty.
But a few months later Nyeila was arrested again and this time charged with the murder of Maxwell, along with Hassan, Constable, Heslop, Karama, Ogilvie-Pitt, and Agyeman, who was at the time still 17 and could not be named until he turned 18.
The Leon Maxwell murder trial was severed with the shooter, Constable, the moped rider, Heslop, and the gang leader and prime organiser, Hassan, put on trial first.
In March 2021 they were all found guilty of murder and jailed for life, although news of their sentencing was hidden by reporting restrictions intended to prevent the jury at the second trial from being prejudiced.
Hassan (pictured, centre) was given a minimum term of 32 years, Heslop (pictured, left) was given a tariff of 28 years and Constable (pictured, right) got 24 years.
In 2021 Nyeila, Karama, Ogilvie-Pitt and Agyeman then went on trial.
They were also accused of murder, on the grounds of joint enterprise, although their roles were lesser and involved providing the stolen moped used in the crime and disposing of it along with the clothes and the weapon.
On 16 June 2021 Nyeila, Karama, Ogilvie-Pitt and Agyeman were acquitted of the murder of Maxwell.
Nyeila was a free man again.
At one point in his trial the prosecutor read out a list of names and Nyeila confirmed they were friends of his who had been murdered – Che Labastide-Wellington, 17, also known as Grimz, who was killed in 2015, Hussein Ahmed, 19, who had the street name Sparts, stabbed to death in November 2016, and Quamari Barnes aka Q-Dotz, 15, stabbed in January 2017.
It remains to be seen what lessons Nyeila will learn from his experience.
But something tells me we have not heard the last of Nyeila.
EPILOGUE – In November 2020 Teerose aka Tamba Momodu, who had moved to Telford in Shropshire, was shot dead. A few weeks later Abzsav, a drill rapper associated with 156 and the Ngang, recorded a video called Tables Turn. In the video, recorded on Northolt’s Islip Manor estate, the rapper mocks Momodu’s murder by using a skeleton as a ventriloquist’s dummy.
In May 2024 Mahamud Tarabi, 32 - brother of Teewhiz - and Deria Hassan, 32, were charged with Momodu’s murder. They are due to go on trial later next year.