Musician who stabbed student to death with 13-inch 'mafia stiletto' knife GUILTY of manslaughter

A musician who stabbed a student eight times as he walked home from a Halloween party has been found guilty of manslaughter.

Luke O'Connor, 19 - described as a 'gentle giant' by his family - was killed in Fallowfield during a horrifying incident on Wilmslow Road in October last year.

Shiloh Pottinger, 20, repeatedly knifed the Manchester Metropolitan University student with a 13-inch 'mafia stiletto' knife after reacting 'violently and unpredictably' to a joke made about his skateboard by Luke's friend. Pottinger - a music producer and student at BIMM university - was just 19 at the time. A jury at Manchester Crown Court found Pottinger not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter following a three week trial. He wept in the dock after the verdicts were read.

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Judge Nicholas Dean KC said he faces a 'lengthy sentence'. Jurors heard how a fight developed at about 2am on October 26 after Luke's friend Charlie Robertson asked Pottinger if he could perform a 'kick flick' on his skateboard.

CCTV footage played to the court showed Pottinger brandishing a knife before pocketing it and hitting Luke over the head with his skateboard. Later, Pottinger could be seen to redraw the knife, stabbing Luke a total of eight times before fleeing, leaving his victim bleeding in the road.

Pottinger then threw his skateboard over the fence of Owens Park student accommodation before briefly stopping to speak to two young women. The court heard he initially asked them to call an ambulance for a cut he sustained during the fight, before changing his mind and running to his home on Brailsford Road.

The 'panicking' then-teen carried out a number of internet searches,