The family of a man who was stabbed to death in east London are making an urgent plea for information a decade after his murder.
Russell ‘Barty’ Brown was stabbed on September 10, 2016, at Nelson Gardens in Bethnal Green.
The stabbing followed a fight which broke out at a party in a friend’s maisonette in Zander Court and then spilled out into the courtyard.
London's Air Ambulance airlifted Russell to Royal London Hospital but he died a few hours later, on September 11.
Russell, a 26-year-old labourer from Bow, was due to undergo surgery at the very same hospital to remove a kidney which was to be donated to his desperately ill aunt who was waiting for a transplant. Just the day before he was stabbed, doctors had given him the green light for the donation.
Russell’s sister, Emma Brown, was heavily pregnant with her son and getting ready for a meal to celebrate her 30th birthday when the phone rang.
Emma’s parents, with whom Russell lived, were babysitting her young daughter and, unbeknown to her, Russell was planning to make a surprise appearance at her birthday meal.
“I picked up the phone thinking it would be my parents, and it was a police officer,” Emma said.
“She said ‘you need to come now’. I pushed her and eventually she told me Russell had been stabbed – when people say, ‘the whole world spins around’, it really does.”
Emma and her parents were utterly shocked by the news – particularly as Russell was “not involved in gangs or knives”.
They rushed to the hospital where they said a final goodbye to Russell.
Grant Carpenter, 34, from the Nelson Gardens estate, was found not guilty of Russell's murder along with his brother Lee, 27, after a three-week trial.
“It’s so hard to move on, especially because you don’t have justice,” Emma said.
“My daughter is 13 now – she was three at the time – and she now knows what happened. When she asks who got in trouble for his death, I have to say no-one.
“Tomorrow is my 40th birthday – I turned 30 and two days later he was stabbed. It’s meant to be happy time but how can I smile when he’s gone?
“He was the most amazing kind person; his friends always said he was a ‘boy with a golden heart’.
“He would help the old lady on the street. When he met people, he would only have to say hello and they would be charmed.
“He was an amazing uncle. He was my best friend; the other half to me.”
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Tragically, Emma and Russell’s aunt died last July after living for more than a decade on dialysis. After Russell died, doctors were never able to secure another kidney donor.
“That one tragic event had a domino effect for so much more,” Emma said. “You don’t realise how devastating knife crime is; you don’t see the ripple effect.
“I don’t know that I’ll ever be the same person again.”
Russell’s parents have kept his bedroom exactly as it was when he was killed.
“My mum would be better living in a flat, but she won’t leave because of my brother’s room – she has kept it the same,” Emma said.
“Every year on the 10th I go back to Nelson Gardens and lay flowers – it makes me feel physically sick to do it.”
Now, on the 10th anniversary of his death, Emma and her family are making a desperate plea for people to come forward with any information which might help secure justice for Russell.
“Ten years is a very long time, and people’s circumstances and loyalties can change,” Emma said.
“Someone who may have felt unable or afraid to speak out in 2016 might now feel able to come forward.
“There may still be someone who knows something about what happened that day, and we desperately hope that, after all these years, they may finally be willing to speak to the police.
“If you know anything: just speak, it’s been long enough. This is somebody’s brother, someone’s son, someone’s uncle.
“It’s not fair that we won’t get justice and it’s what my brother deserves, he deserves justice.”
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