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“Whenever you see me it’s never really me, it’s a persona I put on. The real me is evil, dark, and miserable.”
Those were the words written by teenage killer Hassan Sentamu days before he viciously murdered talented schoolgirl Elianne Andam outside a Croydon shopping centre.
After hiding a large kitchen knife under his hoodie, the 18-year-old launched his attack on the 15-year-old girl after she grabbed a plastic bag from his hand, in an attempt to stand up for her friend.
Sentamu, who had been studying sports science at Croydon College, had been due to meet his ex-girlfriend, Elianne’s friend, to return her teddy bear but had arrived empty-handed, despite her maintaining her side of the bargain and bringing his hoodies.
In a Snapchat video taken moments before she was knifed, Elianne can be seen smiling at the camera, before snatching back her friend’s bag, before her face turns to “abject terror”. Unbeknownst to her and her friends, under Sentamu’s three layers of clothing was a large kitchen knife, which he used to plunge into her neck.
This act of violence was the conclusion in a series of escalating incidents involving Sentamu, which had seen the youth injure two other schoolgirls, speak of his desire to harm a cat and threaten fellow pupils with knives and scissors.
As the Old Bailey case progressed, more troubling details of Sentamu’s upbringing and mental state were told to the jury, as well as his handwritten note that he was “counting down to his suicide”.
Born in Uganda, Sentamu came to live in the UK at the age of five with his three sisters and mother who had fled domestic abuse.
At the age of 11, he briefly attended a boarding school in his country of birth, where he reported being physically abused with a metal pole.
It appears his first act of violence was recorded in November 2018 at the age of 12, when he produced a knife in class, pointed it at his chest and told a teacher he wanted to kill himself.
Upon being disarmed, he claimed he had brought the knife to school to use in cooking lessons, and received a police youth conditional caution.
After his mother said he was “beyond her control”, he was placed in foster care between 2019 and 2021, with his guardian reporting that his temper would “quickly escalate”.
With a clear dislike of being mocked, Sentamu was permanently excluded from one school for threatening a child with a knife for this reason, and in June 2019 he threatened to stab another student with scissors over perceived insults.
Prosecutor Alex Chalk KC told jurors: “When he did not get his way he would threaten to harm the cat or chop off its tail. He expressed a wish to kill himself while living with her and on once occasion drank shower gel and attempted to get a knife from the kitchen.”
On two occasions in December 2019, Sentamu placed female students in a headlock, leaving marks on one girl’s neck.
He was subsequently placed in a school for students with special education needs but continued to struggle with his temper. In October 2022, his mother called the police to report that he had locked himself in his room and covered the walls with washing up liquid.
In the months before Elianne’s death, he struck up a relationship with her friend which soon turned sour, with Sentamu telling her via text: “Ur energy is dead I’m not rdy for a relationship…all the best (sic).”
On 2 September, he would also send a message to a friend questioning whether he was “worth enough to live”.
He confided that he did not think he would live past the age of 20, adding: “I look at my kitchen knives every night wondering if I should just end my misery now or live another day to see the ones I love. Life is hard and tough and I can break people physically and mentally.”
The day before the killing, Sentamu had met Elianne and her friends at the Whitgift Centre where they “teased” him and his ex-girlfriend threw water on him, jurors heard.
He was splashed again and at least one of the girls joked that “tomorrow he would kill them all”.
It was after this perceived disrespect that Sentamu spent the night brooding and plotting his next course of action, telling his friend: “Bro, I can’t let this slide.”
Sentamu, who declined to give evidence, claimed his autism spectrum disorder caused him to lose control during the meeting, an argument that the prosecution roundly rejected.
There was no evidence that autism caused Sentamu to lash out in “frenzied murderous violence”, the court was told.
Jurors also heard that Sentamu got into a row with a fellow inmate at Oakhill Secure Training Centre in Milton Keynes during his time in custody.
On being accused of killing girls, Sentamu responded: “I’ll do it again. I’ll do it to your mum.
“Do you want to end up like her, six feet under? I’ll do the same again.”
Two months after her death, an ambulance was called to Oakhill after reports that Sentamu had ingested the contents of a chemically activated ice pack.
Despite his guilty conviction and the knowledge he will spend a significant portion of his life behind bars, the family of Elianne have been left without their “amazing, beautiful daughter”.
A high-achieving student with hopes of studying human rights, Elianne had also been a talented singer with a deep love of music and dancing. Yet as her loved ones have pointed out in their tributes and what her death demonstrates, is that one of her greatest strengths was the deep loyalty she showed to her friends.
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