Three teenage girl gangsters have admitted killing a 75-year-old man in a senseless street attack which they filmed on a mobile phone. Pensioner Fredi Rivero was set upon in Islington, north London, on February 27 after the feral thugs attacked him. He died in hospital the following day.
Their Bolivian-born victim, who had lived in the UK for over 50 years, was near a bus stop on Seven Sisters Road at 11.30pm when the teenagers got off a bus and surrounded him. The teen thugs, aged 14, 16 and 17, pushed, shoved, kicked and punched the terrified OAP, with one of them filming the incident on her phone and grabbing his glasses. As part of the police investigation, officers recovered chilling CCTV footage of the assault in which the oldest girl was seen to punch the victim in the head causing him to fall backwards.
Police were called at 11.25pm to reports of the disturbance and found Mr Rivero collapsed unconscious on the pavement with a severe head injury and in cardiac arrest.
He was taken to the Royal London Hospital where doctors were unable to save his life.
Today the girls, who cannot be identified because of their ages, appeared at the Old Bailey before Judge Judy Khan KC.
The teens, who appeared from custody by video link, all pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
Judge Khan ordered reports and remanded the defendants into custody to be sentenced on September 5.
Police previously said Mr Rivero was a “much-loved father” whose family were “devastated by his death”.
His daughter, ex-wife and cousins all attended court for the brief hearing on Thursday morning.
His family described him as a “kind and gentle” man who spent more than 20 years working at the five-star Dukes Hotel, near Buckingham Palace.
His daughter previously said: “It’s a senseless death. I don’t know why they did what they did. My dad was a really decent person. He had lived in Britain for most of his life and loved this country. What happened is horrific.”
She revealed the first she knew that something awful had occurred was when a police officer knocked on her door at her home in Buckinghamshire at 2.30am in the morning and told her that her father was critically ill in hospital. The next afternoon she held his hand as doctors switched off his life support.
Fidel Fernandez, 68, a close friend and former colleague at Dukes, said: “Fredi was naturally talkative. It was in his nature to be friends with everyone. I can’t believe what’s happened.”
The eldest of three siblings, Mr Rivero grew up in a middle-class household in Bolivia’s capital, La Paz, where he studied architecture.
He moved to the UK in the early 1970s after being invited to join an engineering programme linked to his father’s role as general manager of a British-owned railway company in Bolivia.
In 1984, he was joined in Britain by his Bolivian-born wife and their toddler. The family settled in Finchley, north London, and later Golders Green.
His daughter, who works at a non-governmental organisation, described a cultured and well-read man who encouraged her to take up the violin and chess. He also imbued in her a love for astronomy.
By the early 1990s, Mr Rivero had switched from a career in engineering and construction to working in hospitality at Dukes. Among the famous guests he met there was Henry Kissinger, the former US secretary of state and
A keen Spurs fan, he worked as a member of the room service staff and sometimes as a waiter, according to his friend Mr Fernandez.
He is understood to have continued working at the hotel in St James’s until his retirement ten years ago.
His friend added: “He had previously been diagnosed with cancer and was not in the best of health. He wouldn’t have been able to defend himself.”
