“Our best friend Alfie Lewis’ murder has inspired me to keep fighting” from it efiling portal Watch Video

⏲ Duration: 4:59
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✓ Published: 28-Jun-2024

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The murder of an innocent 15-year-old boy outside a primary school shocked the nation, but the real impact was felt by those closest to popular Leeds boy Alfie Lewis. <br/>One of those impacted the most was one of his best friends, who had been due to meet Alfie when he was fatally stabbed after school. <br/>15-year-old Toby Colling had been walking up the road to meet Alfie after school.<br/>However, just moments earlier Bardia Shojaeifard, who was 14 at the time, had stabbed Alfie through the heart. <br/>“I didn’t know what had happened at first then as I got closer I realised, there was blood everywhere,” Toby said.<br/>Toby propped Alfie up with his school bag so he wasn’t lying directly on the pavement of Church Road, Horsforth, a leafy suburb in Leeds, in November 2023. <br/>He said: “I was shocked. It was surreal. I tried to help him but he lost consciousness in my arms. I still hoped that somehow he would be OK when he got taken away in an ambulance.”<br/>On the day of Alfie’s murder Shojaeifard, now 15, took a 13cm-long kitchen knife from home with him to school, and carried it around in his trousers all day before attacking Alfie on his way home “in revenge” for an altercation a week earlier.<br/>Shojaeifard, who can now be named after reporting restrictions were lifted, pushed Alfie to the ground before stabbing him twice - once in the heart and once in the leg outside St Margaret’s primary school in “full view” of terrified primary schoolchildren and their parents who witnessed the heinous crime. <br/>Toby said: “Everyone was screaming. When Alfie was taken away. <br/>“We didn’t know who had done it at the time.” <br/>Meanwhile Shojaeifard was captured on CCTV fleeing from the scene and running home past Alfie’s house. <br/>Toby said: “The police managed to capture him within like ten minutes. <br/>“He was in one of my classes at school. He’d been carrying a knife all day. <br/>“Alfie and my friends have never carried knives and never would.” <br/>Alfie was later confirmed dead at hospital, leaving his mother Heather Lane and elder brother Antony Lewis, 23, behind.<br/>Shortly after his death, friends, family and the local community rallied around Alfie’s favourite bench to lay flowers, candles and tributes to football mad Alfie whose family described him at the time as “one in a million.” <br/>Alfie’s loved ones set off balloons the day following Alfie’s death at “the bench.”<br/>Toby said: “It kind of felt surreal; it was like losing a part of yourself. When someone goes like that it just tells you that anyone can just go at any moment. You've got to take every single second like it’s your last.” <br/>Instead of meeting up, Alfie’s group of friends have been holding vigils at ‘the bench,’ which has now become the focal point of a bereft community. <br/>Toby added: “Losing Alfie kind of brought us together as a family, more than friends, we’re all like brothers and sisters now.” <br/>