Milad Golmakani was stabbed to death on a sports pitch in April last year

A hooded gang stabbed a man to death on a Kilburn sports pitch in a planned attack, the Old Bailey heard.

The killers pounced on 22 year-old Milad Golmakani after taking a taxi to the scene near Abbey Road on April 20 last year.

They left in the same taxi moments later leaving the victim bleeding from 14 knife wounds to the neck, back and buttocks.

Mr Golmakani’s friend Zain Salahuddin was also chased and stabbed in the shoulder but managed to escape and hide in a nearby shop.

The two men had been playing football with friends on the Mortimer Crescent estate in Kilburn when they noticed three men approaching them from Abbey Road at around 4.40pm.

Prosecutor Neil Moore said: “Despite the warm weather they were all wearing jackets with their hoods up over their heads and they had at some stage concealed about their persons at least two knives.

“The purpose of their trip was to seek out and attack Milad Golmakani and his friends.

“These three men attacked Milad Golmakani from both the front and back in a forceful and sustained attack.”

Sean Hutton from Belsize Park, Sean Ferdinand from Chalk Farm and Mohammed Hashi from Enfield, all 19, and a 17 year-old boy who cannot be named for legal reasons, are all accused of murder and attempted murder.

The deny the charges.

Jurors heard they are linked to the killing by CCTV footage and mobile phone evidence.

It is claimed they took a taxi to the scene and one of them stayed behind with the car ‘to enable a quick getaway.’

Mr Moore said: “The prosecution case is that each man must have known or at least realised the purpose of this trip was to use extreme violence with knives.”

The trial continues.