Woman sees teenager Martin beaten and killed by mob

A SHOCKED resident tried in vain to stop stabbing victim Martin Dinnegan from being beaten by a mob, the Old Bailey heard this week. Martin, a pupil at St Aloysius College in Highgate, died after being knifed in the back near his home in Holloway on June

A SHOCKED resident tried in vain to stop stabbing victim Martin Dinnegan from being beaten by a mob, the Old Bailey heard this week.

Martin, a pupil at St Aloysius College in Highgate, died after being knifed in the back near his home in Holloway on June 26, 2007 after being chased by a group of teens.

The witness, whose name was protected by the judge on Tuesday, was watching TV when she heard yelling outside in the street which sounded like an "angry football crowd".

She told the court when she looked out of her window Martin was being held against a garden gate by two youths as another repeatedly punched him.

"I opened the window and yelled at them as loud as I could. I shouted something like "Hey, get the hell out of here." I was just trying to get their attention. Some of them looked up but they didn't stop beating up Martin," she said.

Martin died around 8.40pm on the corner of Axminster Road and Tollington Way, not far from his home in Evershot Street, Finsbury Park.

Although she did not see any weapons used, the witness watched the brutal attack unfold from her first-floor flat as she shouted to her husband to call the police.

After momentarily glancing away to find her phone, she looked back out of the window to see Martin was then lying in the middle of the road.

"It looked like a couple of people were kicking him. You could see them swinging their legs towards him and they were definitely kicking him. It didn't look like he was able to defend himself at all. He was lying on the ground and I didn't see him fighting back," she said.