A heartbroken sister spoke in court of the moment she saw her brother's death in the street.

James Gibbons, known as ‘Gibbo’, was stabbed four times outside his home in Iris Mews, in Laindon, on Sunday 2 May The family told the court James’ brother Ashley died after fighting epilepsy in May 2015.

His sister Abbie Gibbons told the court: “When I opened the door and found him on the floor I rushed to help.

“I held his head and was looking in his eyes saying come on James wake up. The pain and panic is still indescribable.

“His eyes were flicking and then he stopped breathing and a neighbour started CPR and when medics removed his clothes we saw he had been stabbed.

“I still remember falling to the floor and saying why, not my big brother too.”

Joshuah Sparks, 16, of Armada Close, in Laindon was jailed for 13 years for the killing of James Gibbons who had been celebrating his twin daughters birthdays.

Mitigating, Christine Agnew said: “He expresses remorse and keeps doing so for what he has done. He had an unstable upbringing with trauma and loss.

He lost two of his friends who seemingly took their own lives.

“From the age of 13 he left home for long periods of time and went missing and was rough sleeping and was approached by criminal gangs who wanted him to work for them.”

Sentencing Judge Charles Bourne told Sparks he made a “tragic decision.”

He said: “You were on the fringe of the incident and had not been in confrontation with Mr Gibbons before. You made a terrible, tragic decision and left the scene intending to find a weapon to scare him and you armed yourself with a kitchenknife.

“You stabbed him four times and two wounds were deep enough to hit a major blood vessel and a kidney.

“You’ve heard the the victim impact statements and they speak for themselves and are moving and distressing.

“I hope in due course these will bring home to you what it means to murder someone not only to the individual but also to their family.”

He told the teenage boy nothing Mr Gibbons did explains or excused what he did to him. The judge said he did not consider Spark to have been provoked.

He added: “What is very troubling is there was no rational explanation for what you did. It was out of proportion to what anything else done by anyone else there.”