A 20-year-old Nigerian student, Paul Akinnuoye, has been jailed for stabbing a 19-year-old to death over a ‘trivial’ row on WhatsApp over who was the ‘least gay’.

Akinnuoye was part of a WhatsApp chat group with victim Jordan Wright where the pair traded insults.

Akinnuoye called the 19-year-old a “batty boy” and he replied, “On your mum’s life I’m straighter than you.”

As the argument escalated, the pair arranged to meet for a fight to settle their differences in Blackheath, Southeast London, on April 19, 2017.

Akinnuoye was carrying a knife but Mr Wright, who was due to start a construction apprenticeship days later thought it was a “fist fight”, the court heard.

He was stabbed in the chest and collapsed after telling friends he felt “unwell”. He later died in hospital.

Akinnuoye’s knife was recovered from a bush in the park and he was convicted of murder earlier this year.

Judge Philip Katz QC jailed Akinnuoye to life with a minimum term of 21 years, condemning friends who had stoked their WhatsApp row.

Detective inspector Jo Sidaway of the Metropolitan Police’s Homicide and Major Crime Command said the murder devastated the victim’s family and shocked the local community.

According to the Independent, Mr. Wright’s mother Katharine Alade said that she had contemplated suicide because of the trauma of her son’s death.

She said.

“There is not one day when I don’t shed tears. I didn’t think it was possible to feel such physical, psychological or mental pain until that fateful day last April. I know I will never be the same.”

More than 600 mourners attended Mr Wright’s funeral, with his mother describing him as a happy-go-lucky boy who did not “understand the complexities of life” because of his autism.