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Friend Lewis Dilallo speaks of stabbings before Kyle Yule was stabbed in Gillingham

A friend of a teenager who suffered fatal wounds when rival gangs clashed has told of being stabbed twice on separate occasions during “conflict” among youths.

Lewis Dilallo said one stabbing involved a bike being stolen. He was also knifed about a month before outside his house in East Street in Gillingham.

The 18-year-old is giving evidence at the trial of Victor Maibvisira, 19, of St John’s Road, Gillingham, three 17-year-olds and a 16-year-old, from Gillingham, Croydon, Sittingbourne and Stevenage, Hertfordshire.

Kyle Yule was stabbed to death in Gillingham (1526975)
Kyle Yule was stabbed to death in Gillingham (1526975)

They all deny murdering Kyle Yule, an alternative of manslaughter and violent disorder.

Kyle, who was 17, was attacked in East Street as he tried to flee to his home in nearby Hamilton Road on Friday, October 6 last year.

He was knifed under his right armpit as violence broke out between gangs from Chatham and Gillingham, and died soon afterwards.

Giving evidence without being screened from the dock, Mr Dilallo said he had known Kyle for about seven years and regarded him as “family”.

Prosecutor Steven Perian QC asked him about two groups of youths known as G10 and C4.

G10, he said, was a “messenger group” comprising about 11 ex-Chatham Grammar School friends, including Kyle.

“I don’t actually know what the purpose was,” he told the jury at Maidstone Crown Court. “I just got added into the chat. There wasn’t really a purpose. They were making a joke out of something.”

Mr Dilallo said he did not really know much about C4. “There were boys going around classing themselves as C4,” he said.

“I am not sure what C4 stands for. I am not sure how many people were in C4 or where they were from. They thought we were a gang called G10.”

The teenager said he was at first friends with Maibvisira, known as Vee, after meeting him about 18 months ago.

“I met Vee just out and about, just chilling,” he said. “I was all right with him. I thought he was OK.”

But the relationship changed when there was conflict about a young boy taking another boy’s bike.

“From there it just got out of hand,” he said. “It turned out to be one of the younger kids who done it. I was told he was getting beaten up round the back in Gillingham High Street.”

Mr Dilallo said he and Kyle went there also. Both of them had been drinking.

“I remember Kyle and Vee getting into conflict,” he said. “I think they had a fight. I walked away at this point. I was by McDonald’s when this went down.”

That incident, he said, changed his relationship with Vee.

Kyle Yule, 17, from Gillingham was stabbed and died later in hospital
Kyle Yule, 17, from Gillingham was stabbed and died later in hospital

“A few days after that, 15 boys came to my alley in Hamilton Street,” he continued. “I didn’t recognise them because they had things covering their faces. I could only see their eyes. The majority of them must have been dark-skinned.

“I remember being pushed on the floor. I remember someone stabbing me in my a---, in my bum. I was stabbed a month before that.”

That happened, he said, outside his other home in East Street.

“That time there were only three. It has all been dealt with. They were black.”

Maibvisira and one of the 17-year-olds have admitted threatening “another” with a machete in Gillingham Road, Gillingham, six days earlier on October 1.

One of the 17-year-olds has denied affray, using unlawful violence, on that date.

Mr Dilallo told of conflict and arguments, adding: “I couldn’t work it out. It was confusing me. They came to my house after I got stabbed up. It was like: Why are you coming to my house over a stupid bike?”

He described another incident involving him and Kyle being chased into the Southern Bell pub in Gillingham by a group of six or seven “masked up” youths.

“They literally chased us into the pub,” he said. “I just thought there was a problem. We didn’t do anything that I know of for that to happen to us.”

Mr Dilallo wept as he described the moment he realised Kyle had been stabbed.

He left Kyle sitting in a friend's car while he went to Pizza Bello to get some food for his mother.

As he walked back he said he put his thumb up to Kyle as if to say: "You alright?"

Mr Dilallo said he went inside with the food. He then heard banging on the door.

"Kyle was bleeding," he said. "I couldn't really say where he got stabbed.

"He had two jumpers on. They were quite baggy. I remember pulling off his jumper.

"He was losing so much blood. It was like water falling on the floor.

"He just said he was dying. That's all he said. It was like 'help me' " - Lewis Dilallo

"He said: 'I am going to die.' I said: 'No you are not.' I remember seeing his eyes and him telling me he is not going to live.

"He just said he was dying. That's all he said. It was like 'Help me'. We put him in the sofa.

"My mum was trying to ring the ambulance. All they kept asking was 'What happened?' He was lying there dying and they were 'What happened?'

"My mum was in bits. Everyone just went. I was there with Kyle. Me and my mum tried our best, and a few neighbours.

"No one really helped him enough. I was there until the ambulance came. He passed out. They asked everyone to leave. I went down to my dad's.

"I went to the hospital. I got told at about 3am Kyle had passed away."

Jonathan Higgs, QC for the 16-year-old, told Mr Dilallo: "What this trial is about is what happened to Kyle and what led to his death.

"That is something you didn't see. You saw the terrible aftermath of it.

"You didn't think it was going to lead to someone dying. Tragically, it did. You said at the time it was just a laugh. You didn't take it seriously."

The teenager replied: "No one did."

Mr Dilallo said after the incident when he and Kyle were chased into the pub he went home and then saw Vee’s Snapchat, telling him to have his coffin ready because he was “a dead man walking”.

“I was a bit drunk and I was saying a lot of things,” he said. “I can’t remember what he said and what I said. It was a Snapchat from Vee.”

He agreed there was an angry exchange between them.

“It was about them coming to the alley to stab me up,” he said. “That’s what made me go mad. I am nothing to them. They came to my house and caused trouble.”

The trial continues.

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