A university student was on the phone to his girlfriend when he was stabbed in the heart after falling out with a friend over a fake Rolex, a court heard.
Khaleed Oladipo, 20, was walking home when he was knifed five times in the chest by fellow student Harper Dennis, 18, after they argued about a ‘perceived debt’, jurors were told.
The attack was caught on a passing motorist’s dashcam who told how she saw ‘a snowstorm of feathers’ from one of their puffer jackets, Leicester Crown Court heard on Monday.
Dennis, a first year student at Leicester University, denies murder, claiming self defence.
On the first day of his trial, jurors were told Dennis and Mr Oladipo, who was in his third year studying cyber security at Leicester’s De Montfort University, were friends through online gaming and were both part of a group chat, Clownshow, a court heard.
But they had fallen out over money – with Dennis claiming to be owed £3,000. He had allegedly threatened Mr Oladipo’s girlfriend if he did not pay up.
Jurors were told Dennis had also been left ’embarrassed’ when a Rolex watch Mr Oladipo had given him to sell turned out to be fake and he was ‘laughed at’ by jewellers.
Mr Oladipo was attacked shortly before 5pm on February 3 as he made his way home from his girlfriend’s flat to watch an Arsenal football match.
He was on the phone to her as he walked and she heard him say ‘why did you come up and stab me?’ before asking for her to call an ambulance.
Mr Oladipo collapsed in the street shortly afterwards. Passers-by performed CPR and he was taken to hospital but could not be saved.
A post-mortem examination showed he had suffered six wounds, five to the chest including one which penetrated his heart, and a defensive injury to his thumb.
De Montfort University cyber security student Khaleed Oladipo died after being stabbed
Police searching bins after the attack in February. Harper Dennis, 18, of North Road in West Drayton, London, denies murder
Police search near the scene at the campus of De Montfort University in Leicester
Dennis is now on trial accused of murder, having an article with a blade or point and failing to provide the PIN for his phone.
Opening the case at Leicester Crown Court, prosecutor Jane Osborne KC said: ‘Khaleed Oladipo was killed not by a stranger, but by somebody who knew him.
‘Khaleed Oladipo and Harper Dennis, this defendant, knew each other from online gaming.
‘They had previously been friends. They were part of a Snapchat group together, but there had been a falling out seemingly over money that, at the very least, Harper Dennis perceived was owed to him by Khaleed Oladipo.
‘It would seem the perceived debt was the reason that Harper Dennis attacked Khaleed Oladipo in the street on the 3rd of February.’
Jurors were told the two men engaged in a ‘short struggle’ before they both went to the floor.
The prosecutor told the court footage shows Dennis’s arm moving in a ‘backwards and forwards’ motion, ‘consistent with the stab wounds inflicted to the left hand side of Mr Oladipo’s chest’.
She added: ‘Having been stabbed, Khaleed Oladipo rises to his knees and the defendant runs off.
‘He isn’t pursued. It’s clear Khaleed Oladipo is not capable of pursuing Harper Dennis.’
Ms Osborne added: ‘It was an incident that lasted, in reality, seconds.’
The court heard a witness who had been driving in traffic recalled seeing a ‘snowstorm of feathers from one of their coats’ during the altercation, Ms Osborne said.
The woman got out of her car to help Mr Oladipo and saw a knife ‘parallel’ to where he lay on the ground.
Ms Osborne told the jury two calls were made by Dennis to Mr Oladipo’s girlfriend Shekeizah Fowler-Palmer on Christmas Day last year.
The barrister said: ‘The caller said to her Khaleed was a bad guy and that Khaleed owed him £3,000.
‘That caller intimated if Khaleed did not give the money, he, the caller, would come to her.’
Ms Osborne said there was also an occasion when Mr Oladipo gave Dennis a watch to sell and advised him not to go to certain jewellers because it was a fake Rolex.
When Dennis went to sell the watch at a jewellers in Hatton Garden in London, he was ‘laughed at’ because it was fake and was ’embarrassed and angry’ with Mr Oladipo, jurors were told.
The prosecutor said messages between the two confirmed they had fallen out, including one from Dennis which said he ‘won’t ever forget’ what Mr Oladipo did.
In a Snapchat message from Dennis to Mr Oladipo on Boxing Day last year, he said he would ‘dedicate his life to making sure you suffer for what you did’, the court heard.
Financial records showed a number of transfers between the two starting in December 2024, with the final one on Christmas Day, 2025 from Mr Oladipo to Dennis.
It was for 60p, sent with the reference ‘5999 to go’.
Dennis, who had allegedly fled the scene with his face covered, was arrested at his university accommodation later that night.
His phone was seized but he refused to hand over the PIN code for it.
A search of his flat found four knives – two standard kitchen knives, a 25cm knife with a double-bladed tip in a sheath and a Kombat Tactical knife with serration.
The court heard he had given a flatmate a black bin bag to put out with her rubbish, which officers later found had contained the clothing he had been wearing at the time of the attack.
He initially answered no comment before providing a statement admitting he had been present but had been acting in self-defence.
Dennis, of North Road in West Drayton, London, denies the charges against him.
The trial, which is expected to last three weeks, continues.
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