“This could be the motive in what otherwise appears to have been a motiveless attack”
17:46, 14 Oct 2025Updated 17:52, 14 Oct 2025
Eddie Kinuthia(Image: Avon and Somerset Police)
Two men accused of murdering Eddie Kinuthia in St Pauls were ‘motivated’ by the ongoing conflict between ‘rival factions’ in Bristol’s so-called ‘postcode wars’, Bristol Crown Court has heard. The two were ‘closely associated’ with the East Bristol ‘faction’ the 1-6s, and travelled into St Pauls to kill the 19-year-old in an attack ‘which otherwise appears to have been random in nature’, the jury has been told.
On the second day of the trial of Zachariah Talbert-Young and Paul Hayden, prosecutor Andrew Langdon concluded his opening statement, and told the jury that he would show all the evidence they need to be sure that the two men were guilty of the murder of Eddie King, and of a separate serious attack on a man in Easton months later.
Mr Langdon told the jury that Talbert-Young, 27, from Easton, and Hayden, 22, from Hanham, ‘worked together in a joint enterprise’ as they planned and carried out the attack on Eddie King Kinuthia at Grosvenor Park in St Pauls at 11pm on the evening of July 21, 2023.
He showed CCTV of the attack taking place, with the video showing two men in black clothing and face coverings getting off a distinctive high-powered e-bike, with the pillion passenger stabbing Eddie many times.
In his opening submission this morning (Tuesday), Mr Langdon told the jury that the Crown did not know what the motive was for attacking Eddie, nor did they have to prove the motive, but one reason could be the ongoing rivalry between what he described as ‘factions’ – the ‘2-4s’ based around St Pauls, and the ‘1-6s’ based further east in Fishponds and Easton.
Mr Langdon told the jury: “There is within Bristol – and sadly this has been so for many years now, since about 2018 – a violent rivalry between young men from the St Pauls area, and those from further east, as far as Fishponds and surrounding areas.
“Based on the respective postcodes, those associated with St Pauls have come to be known as the ‘2-4s’ and those from East Bristol, the ‘1-6s’. There have been a number of violent incidents, including killings – murders – in recent years, which appear to have been driven by rivalry and reprisals between the two factions,” he added.
Mr Langdon mentioned aspiring rapper Takayo Nembhard – better known as TKor Stretch, or just TK – who was stabbed to death at the Notting Hill Carnival in 2022. He said he was a ‘prominent member of the 1-6s’, and was ‘an associate’ of both Talbert-Young and Hayden. The jury was told Hayden had appeared in one of Nembhard’s videos, which was uploaded in 2023 when his family released an album of his music posthumously.
“One of the hallmarks of the 1-6s is the wearing of a green bandana,” Mr Langdon told the jury. “Mr Hayden can be seen wearing such a bandana in a music video in which Takayo Nembhard is the centrepiece. When police searched Hayden’s home two days after Eddie Kinuthia’s murder, they found such a bandana.
“It appears that each of Nembhard, Talbert-Young and Hayden were closely associated with the 1-6 cohort of young men. Eddie Kinuthia, on the other hand, was very much associated with St Pauls and the 2-4s. He lived in the heart of St Pauls. He was of the same age as key members of the 2-4s and was regularly seen associating with them,” Mr Langdon added.
Eddie King Muthemba Kinuthia was fatally stabbed in a park in Bristol(Image: PA Media)
“In relation to this topic of violent rivalry between the 2-4s and the 1-6s, the prosecution does not know why Eddie Kinuthia was murdered. There is, in fact, no obligation on the prosecution to prove the motive that drove those responsible, to kill him. But it is right you should know that this cohort rivalry and reprisal activity exists and is a very real day-to-day feature in the lives of those who are at the centre of the evidence in this case.
“On the face of the evidence, this feature may have a bearing on why the attack on Eddie Kinuthia – which otherwise appears to have been random in nature – took place. You must not make the mistake of considering that, because these defendants or either of them, is associated with the 1-6s, that somehow of itself proves their guilt. Of course it does not. Mere association with one of these rival factions, on its own, proves very little. But the prosecution suggest it may be relevant in this case to the question of motive in what otherwise appears to have been a motiveless attack,” he told the court.
Mr Langdon outlined the detailed evidence that the Crown will present to the jury over the next week or so, that he said showed Hayden travelled from his home in Hanham, met up with Talbert-Young in Easton, retrieved a distinctive e-bike from the backyard of a home in Whitehall, and rode it into St Pauls before stabbing Eddie Kinuthia.
The jury was also told they would be shown evidence that Talbert-Young’s cousin Remi Hitchcock, 30, from Easton, helped dispose of the bike around an hour after the attack. He is standing trial alongside the other defendants, charged with assisting an offender.
Mother of Eddie King – Irene Muthemba – at a memorial event in January(Image: PAUL GILLIS / Reach PLC)
The jury was also told that several times over the course of the next few months, large knives were found in the homes of both Talbert-Young and Hayden, or were found by police in other locations and found to have their DNA. Both men deny the charges against them.
Mr Langdon also told the jury that police arrested Hayden at home a few days after the attack on Eddie Kinuthia, after work to trace the e-bike’s journey by scouring CCTV images across East Bristol, but attempts to arrest Talbert-Young failed.
He was eventually stopped by police in Merseyside almost four weeks later, as he was about to board a late evening ferry from Liverpool to Belfast, and he had £1,392 and €540 in cash.
The trial continues.