A father-of-three who refused to give evidence after seeing his friend Ben Fasina being killed by a knife wielding mob has been jailed.
Emmanuel Odiase, 24, dodged police phone calls, refused to answer the door, and brazenly told detectives he would not come to the Old Bailey to give evidence.
The Haldane Road resident was one of the eye-witnesses to the stabbing of his friend, Olamide 'Trigger' Fasina, who was brutally stabbed to death by a mob in Thamesmead, southeast London, on October 24 last year.
But when Odiase was wanted to give evidence at the murder trial in April, he went missing.
Judge Jeremy Donne QC jailed Odiase for 21 days, telling him: "You avoided significant efforts made by the police to bring you to court to give evidence.
"These trials are difficult enough for the police without people like you making them very much harder.
"You accept you told the police you did not want to be involved and you would avoid any attempt to bring you to court.
"It's vitally important the public understand when required to give evidence in a criminal trial, they must turn up.
"It's not for individuals to decide they are no longer interested."
At the trial, gang boss Steven Ngolo (above), 22, was convicted of arranging the fatal attack on Mr Fasina from inside his prison cell at HMP Thameside, exploiting flaws in security to call accomplices.
Ngolo was jailed for three years, Louis Henry (below) was jailed for 12 years for manslaughter and conspiracy to commit actual bodily harm, and Alvin Ansah-Baathy was also jailed for three years for conspiracy to commit actual bodily harm.
Detectives had tried to locate Odiase at the start of April, serving a witness summons and speaking to him over the phone.
However, he tried to retract his witness statement and told one officer he was prepared to stand silent in the witness box.
After police obtained a warrant for his arrest, Odiase vowed to change his phone number and dodged officers if they came to find him.
He could not be located, and the trial had to continue without his testimony.
Odiase, who was then charged with contempt of court, apologised but said he had been too scared to give evidence.
He said: "I'm sorry if I wasted your time and police time - I am sincere sorry about it, all I can say is sorry."
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The judge jailed him for 21 days, saying he would serve half before being released.
Odiase, a student with three young children, may also be forced to pay a new £1,200 Crown Court surcharge after he was found guilty of contempt of court.
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