Teenager on police bail sentenced to life for killing grandfather in London park

Rasheed Rahman, 19, was convicted of murdering Mark Carroll, 55, after plunging a kitchen knife into the victim’s back in St Martin’s Gardens, Camden, on 10 April 2024. The teenager had been released on police bail on two separate occasions, allowing him to carry out the fatal attack and a prior stabbing of Iulian Cavaliuc in east London. Court proceedings revealed Rahman’s background as a Sudanese asylum seeker who arrived illegally as a child and later endured trauma in Libya and Sudan, though the judge found no current severe psychotic illness.

Defence counsel John Femi-Ola KC argued that Rahman’s complex post-traumatic stress disorder and age should mitigate the sentence, but the judge emphasized the seriousness of the crime. Rahman was sentenced at Wood Green Crown Court to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 24 years and 59 days. Victims’ families described profound grief, with one daughter pregnant at the time of the killing and another suffering PTSD. The Metropolitan Police have launched an inquiry into whether earlier police actions could have prevented the murder.