Two men who stabbed footballer Cody Fisher in unprovoked nightclub attack jailed for life
Cody Fisher was murdered in revenge for a brief altercation two days previously
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Two men who murdered a footballer on the dancefloor of a Birmingham nightclub on Boxing Day have been jailed for life.
Cody Fisher, 23, was attacked in Crane nightclub in Digbeth after his killers smuggled a weapon through security and stabbed him in the chest.
The former Birmingham City academy player was attacked in a “planned act of retribution” for a minor incident two days previously, which had seen Mr Fisher brush up against Remy Gordon’s back on Christmas Eve.
Jurors at Birmingham Crown Court were told Gordon, of Cofton Park Drive, Birmingham, orchestrated the “awful revenge” alongside Kami Carpenter, 22, after Mr Fisher made brief “unavoidable” contact while leaving a Popworld club in Solihull.
When challenged by Gordon, Mr Fisher was not prepared to apologise, having done nothing wrong and been threatened with violence, the court heard, and left the club with his friend.
Over the following 48 hours, social media messages sent by Gordon showed that he was “set on retribution” and sent messages to friends, asking for help in identifying a photograph of Mr Fisher and threatening to “shank him up”.
Gordon was jailed for life with a minimum term of 26 years on Monday while Carpenter was jailed with a minimum term of 25 years.
Explaining the motivation for the killing, Mr Duck said: “The prosecution say this was a joint and planned attack involving extreme violence.
“It was not a matter of chance that Cody Fisher was attacked. It was not a flash of temper – it was a planned act of retribution.”
Jurors were told that Gordon felt embarrassed and frustrated that he had been unable to intimidate a member of the public, and had plotted to take revenge on the footballer on Boxing Day.
Snapchat messages sent between Gordon and Carpenter in the hours before they arrived at the club show them asking “can I get a shank in there”, while Gordon also said he was “looking to snuff someone”.
The court was also told a mutual friend of one of the defendants and Mr Fisher had suggested that he and the semi-professional footballer leave the Crane nightclub due to Gordon’s presence at the venue.
“Cody Fisher indicated that he was not prepared to leave the premises and be intimidated in that way,” Mr Duck said.
Mobile phone footage of Mr Fisher lying on the floor after he was stabbed in the chest and leg was shown to the court, as well as further film which captured part of the attack on his friend.
In what was described as “one of the appalling details of the case”, the large knife that was used in the attack was still embedded in his chest while he was being treated by medical staff.
Gordon was later captured on CCTV of a pizza takeaway restaurant re-enacting the attack and “laughing”. He later attempted to flee to Jamaica while Carpenter tried to escape to London, before they were both arrested.
In an interview with the BBC, his girlfriend Jess Chadwin, who was with him at the nightclub and called the police, said she thought he had initially been knocked out until she discovered the knife.
In an emotional impact statement, she said her world “shattered” as her boyfriend took his last breaths in her arms.
She said: “Seconds before that moment I remember turning around and looking at Cody behind me and he gave me the biggest smile full of love and happiness – now I question if that was his goodbye.
“My life stopped that day, I live each day with enormous pain, loneliness and sadness,” she continued.
“I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with Cody. Now I have to face the world without his love and guidance, something he always showed me while we were together.
A statement from Mr Fisher’s mother Tracey, who did not enter the court room but was in the building during the sentencing hearing, was also read out in which she said it was “too much for a mother to bear” to hear the defendants’ “abhorrent lies”.
Paying tribute to her son, her statement said: “Since this horrendous day I feel that my own life has ended, it is as though I too was stabbed straight through the heart.
“I have seen myself go from the happiest, outgoing person, to fighting the hell out of just getting through each and every horrendous, never-ending day in the abhorrent knowledge that my youngest son, my best friend, is never coming home to sleep in his bedroom, the room that I still cannot enter even to this day.
“I instilled in Cody from a young boy that he must stick up for himself and don’t let anyone bully him.
“I told him that sad, weak individuals do exist in our society and they ruin lives – how ironic and saddening that this is exactly what happened to Cody.
“He was only doing what his mum told him to do and I think about this every day, but you never expect your child to be murdered.”
After a 10-week trial, Gordon was found guilty of murder and affray, while Carpener was found guilty of murder. Fellow defendant Reegan Anderson, 19, of Brookvale Park Road, Erdington, was found not guilty of murder and not guilty of an alternative charge of manslaughter but guilty of affray.