TWO teenage members of a brutal happy slap gang pleaded guilty to killing a retired British man in front of his three-year-old granddaughter.
Frail Ekram Haque, 67, was walking home from a mosque in Tooting, south west London, last August when he was singled out for a random attack by the pair, Sky News reported.
Mr Haque, a former care worker, fell to the ground after being struck from the front and back by two teens while a third filmed the attack on a mobile phone. He died a week later in hospital.
The gang, which called themselves Lane Gang Productions, targeted vulnerable people in a largely ethnic area of the capital.
The two teens, aged 15 and 16, admitted assaults on four other people before Mr Haque’s death.
Detectives probing their spree recovered at least six videos of unrelated happy slapping incidents taken from mobile phones.
The prank typically involves a gang member slapping or punching a complete stranger in the face while an accomplice films the violence.
The trend has plagued British playgrounds and public transport after it first emerged in London several years ago.
While police could not establish whether last August’s attack on Mr Haque was specifically a happy slapping incident, a court heard that it fitted a pattern of escalating violence.
Brian Altman, prosecuting, told London’s Old Bailey court: “There was evidence available to us to from mobile telephones of so-called Happy Slap-type activity in the week leading up to these events.”
The youths, who cannot be named for legal reasons, appeared at London’s Old Bailey court where they pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
Another 15-year-old pleaded guilty to the other assaults which caused actual bodily harm but he denies manslaughter.
Judge Stephens remanded all three in custody until July 23 for sentencing.
Read more about the teenagers who admit to random attack on elderly British man at Sky News.
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