A teenager who adopted a “faux gangster persona” after being influenced online has been locked up for life to serve a minimum of 14 years for the murder of a 16-year-old boy over a £20 drug debt.

The 17-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, knifed Joshua Ingram with a 19cm-long blade which he had hidden in his tracksuit bottoms at Seaford railway station in East Sussex, on September 10 2025.

He had pleaded guilty to manslaughter but was found guilty of the 16-year-old’s murder by jurors following a trial at Hove Crown Court.

Joshua’s family said his death showed the “devastating consequences” of teenage knife crime as they urged young people to rethink their choices.

Sentencing the teenager for murder and possessing a knife to a life sentence with a minimum of 14 years in detention, Mr Justice Bourne KC said: “Joshua Ingram was a popular young man with all his life before him.”

He added: “It seems that Josh Ingram owed you about £20. That, of course, cannot begin to explain what you did. It would not provide even the smallest excuse for hurting someone, let alone for attacking them with a large knife.”

Colin Aylott KC, defending, said that the defendant had been influenced online leading him to adopt a “faux gangster persona”.

He said: “Influence online led to the adoption of this rather disturbing language and disturbing persona.

“It was all rather pathetic and reflects the immaturity of the defendant.”

He added the defendant was a “young man who immediately recognised the gravity of what he has done and then tried in every way he can to start on the road to rehabilitation.”

In a victim impact statement read to court, Joshua’s mother Yvette Bullen described her son, saying: “Kind, caring, cheeky, loveable rogue, great friend, goofball but also challenging and a little sod – all the traits that made Josh, Josh.”

She added: “A young person with hopes, dreams and the future. Josh was loved. His life mattered and ours will never be the same again.”

Ms Bullen continued: “As his mother I live with guilt every day. On the Friday before, Josh had ask me for £20 and I said no. That’s a parenting decision I will regret for the rest of my life.”

She described seeing her son, who was training to be a bricklayer, being taken away on a stretcher following the attack and only being able to give him a kiss on the forehead after he had died because he was a “crime scene”.

Calling for her son’s death to send a message to others to prevent knife crime, she said: “His life was worth so much more than £20.

“I hope this vicious, senseless act makes others think before carrying a knife and, as for others, if you know someone is carrying one, report it rather than assisting them, because this could have been prevented if someone had spoken up.”

The prosecution had told jurors that the youth defendant was a “small-time drug dealer” who had supplied Joshua, from Newhaven, with drugs in the summer of 2025 but had not been paid for them.

Snapchat messages read in court included the teenager now convicted of murder saying: “Josh will perish if I don’t get my f****** money, that’s a fact and he knows this.

“I’m ready to sit in a prison cell for 30 years over a £20 sheet.”

Two other teenagers, aged 17 and 15, were sentenced to a youth rehabilitation order with one-year of supervision after being convicted of assisting an offender.

The judge told them: “For people of your age detention is a last resort. Even though this case is very serious, what you did was far, far removed from the murder itself and therefore I have decided you have not reached that last resort and that’s also because of the positive things I have read about you.”

Applications from the press, including the Press Association, to lift anonymity of the teenager locked up for Joshua’s murder will be decided at a later date.