A woman who stabbed to death an 18-year-old student in a “pointless argument” about stolen pasta has been jailed for at least 23-and-a-half years.
Maxine Benson, 32, pierced Chelsea fan Alfie Stone’s heart in the broad daylight attack, as he desperately used a chip shop advertising board to try and defend himself.
Alfie, a student at special needs academy Pield Heath Hourse in Uxbridge, bled heavily from four wounds to his chest and died shortly after being airlifted to hospital.
Benson launched the attack when a petty row over pasta taken from her bedsit kitchen spilled out on to the streets of Ickenham, in west London.
She berated Alfie and his older brother Jake for tucking into the food, and then pulled out a knife.
Benson dumped the weapon afterwards and fled after the stabbing but later admitted manslaughter after being identified as the attacker by commuters who witnessed the stabbing.
She was convicted of murder by an Old Bailey jury yesterday following a trial, and was jailed for life with a minimum of 23-and-a-half years by Judge Richard Marks QC, the Common Serjeant of London.
“The red mist had well and truly descended so far as you were concerned and you pursued the brothers into the alleyway and then in the street”, he said.
“This was on any view of the murder a senseless, needless and mindless killing of a boy only 18-years-old with the whole rest of his life ahead of him.”
The stabbing happened two days after the Stone brothers had visited Benson’s bedsit in Ickenham High Street on November 7 last year.
Benson’s friend Corine Cripps was reluctant to let the brothers in, and became irate when she realised the bowl of pasta had been eaten.
Two days later, the row over the stolen food blew up again and Benson hid a knife up her sleeve before joining the confrontation.
“There was then an argument, apparently about pasta during which Corine Cripps accused Jake and Alfie of having eaten food which didn’t belong to them when they stayed previously a couple of night ago”, said prosecutor Tony Badenoch QC.
“The argument continued with Maxine Benson, remaining at the top of the stairs and shouting at Jake about the pasta.”
As the argument spilled out into the street, Benson produced the knife and lunged at Alfie outside Tesco Express.
“Maxine Benson wielded the knife. She was witnessed to do so by members of the public and CCTV in part, on the day she knifed him in the chest and then left the scene leaving him laying dying,” said Mr Badenoch.
In a letter to the judge, Benson apologised and said: “I don’t want you to have mercy on me, I’ve done an unforgiveable thing and I also think I deserve to be dead.
“I wish I could replace his life with me - not a day goes by when I don’t truly regret what’s gone on.”
The court heard she has a string of past convictions including robbery, violence, and possession of a weapon.
Cripps, 29 and her boyfriend Steve Hawgood, 28, were accused of egging Benson on but the jury cleared them both of murder.
They will learn later this week whether they face a retrial for manslaughter after the jury failed to reach a verdict on the alternative charge.