‘She was a miracle baby’: Elianne Andam had dreams of law career, aunt tells PJDM

Elianne Andam’s aunt is so overcome with grief she says she nonetheless cannot deliver herself to stroll previous a mural of the murdered teenager, which is painted on a wall in south London.

“The ache hasn’t gone away,” Marian Addow tells the PJDM. “There is not any happiness in me realizing that we misplaced our lovely daughter.”

Her eyes glaze over as she remembers the horrifying particulars of the 15-year-old’s dying.

It is her first broadcast interview since her niece was murdered. She says Elianne’s mom is just too heartbroken to talk about what occurred.

Hassan Sentamu, 18, has now been discovered responsible of her homicide. He stabbed Elianne to dying with a kitchen knife outdoors a buying centre in Croydon, in September 2023.

Sentamu had refused at hand again gadgets belonging to Elianne’s good friend, who he had break up up with 10 days earlier.

When Elianne grabbed a bag of his garments in solidarity together with her good friend, he chased after her, pulled out the knife and repeatedly stabbed her, the jury in his homicide trial at London’s Outdated Bailey heard.

Elianne begged her killer to cease as he stabbed her within the neck, jurors have been informed.

Marian remembers her disbelief when she heard one thing had occurred to Elianne.

“I finished every part that I used to be doing and I went on the web as a result of that is the one factor I can do.” She discovered a report saying a lady had been stabbed in Croydon.

“I do not even keep in mind how I obtained to Croydon. I noticed my sister with the police and I knew that the worst has occurred to our household,” she says.

“I’ve not slept a full evening for the previous yr, each evening is the toughest bit.”

Elianne was a “miracle” child, her aunt says.

Her start, on June 28, 2008, was one in all pure pleasure for her mother and father who had been making an attempt to conceive for years.

Rising up in Croydon, with a youthful brother, she additionally spent a whole lot of time together with her older feminine cousins.

“They’d do ladies’ nights collectively and have sleepovers, as a result of I’ve obtained three ladies,” says Marian, who fondly noticed her as a fourth daughter.

Elianne’s cell phone was by no means too distant and he or she loved posting movies of perfected dance strikes on social media.

“She was a standard teenager who liked every part. She liked TikTok. She liked to smile and would all the time come to you for recommendation.”

Marian remembers how Elianne liked doing issues for her household – whether or not it was cooking macaroni cheese or doing hair for her cousins and buddies. “Pom poms was her favorite, you’d assume they’d gone to a salon.”

The 15-year-old was an bold scholar who liked studying, she says.

Elianne attended the Outdated Palace of John Whitgift College, an unbiased ladies faculty, which described her as a “a lot liked and valued good friend and pupil”.

“She wished to do one thing huge,” says Marian. “She was all the time studying and really tutorial. She wished to grow to be a human rights lawyer… justice was essential for her.

“The household was very completely satisfied to see a younger woman rising with a whole lot of aspirations, to grow to be any individual sooner or later.”

The schoolgirl’s homicide hit the Croydon group exhausting.

Within the following weeks, lots of of individuals, together with the rapper Stormzy, got here collectively for a vigil and the funeral.

“Getting that decision was one of the vital harrowing calls I’ve ever acquired,” says Anthony King, a youth mentor and anti-knife crime campaigner who was one of many first eye-witnesses on the scene.

“I nonetheless have flashbacks. A phenomenal younger woman from a tremendous household going to high school and her life is ruthlessly taken.

“Whenever you choose up a knife and also you go to stab a youngster, not solely are you messing up their life, you are messing up your life.”

A mural of Elianne was unveiled outdoors the buying centre, a yr after her dying. Her beaming smile stops many individuals of their tracks.

“I have not gone again as a result of it is exhausting for me realizing that we’ll by no means see her once more,” says Marian. “When individuals see her face they need to do not forget that a really lovely woman has been misplaced.”