Detective work by a group of boys who saw their friend get fatally stabbed helped police quickly catch his teenage killer, the senior investigating officer has said.

Friends of Tomasz Oleszak scoured social media to get Leighton Amies’ name after he stabbed the 14-year-old in a North East nature reserve.

Tomasz, a promising footballer from Gateshead, died the day after the attack at Whitehills Nature Park, near Wrekenton, last October.

The Northern Echo: Tomasz Oleszak was a popular 14-year-oldTomasz Oleszak was a popular 14-year-old (Image: Contributor)

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Amies, now 15, who was sent to pupil referral unit following his exclusion from mainstream education , had armed himself a steak knife ‘for reassurance’.

Police believe the confrontation escalated because of a childish dispute over the girl he was with, but a jury rejected his claim that he acted in self-defence after being badly beaten.

During his trial at Newcastle Crown Court, before he was convicted of murder, the jury was told Amies plunged the blade 8cm into Tomasz’s chest before boasting: "I've wetted your boy".

Detective Inspector Chris Deavin, who led the murder inquiry, said piecing together what had happened, given the tender age of witnesses took a great deal of skill and sensitivity.

He said it was clear young people had been very traumatised by what they that fateful night.

He said: “This was a complex investigation in that we had to speak to quite a number of distressed children who witnessed what happened.

“It required real sensitivity in terms of the way we approached those interviews and the evidence we were able to gather from those children.

“You saw the devastation. Their attempts to talk about what they saw that night always resulted in them getting very upset so again I think it's really difficult to measure the impact that it's that it's had on them.”

During the attack, Amies also slashed the coat of Tomasz’s best friend and DI Deavin said police could have easily have been dealing with a double murder inquiry.

He said: “If he been a pace forward, or had not stepped back, that could have been another fatal injury.”

The Northern Echo: Leighton Amies Leighton Amies (Image: Contributor)

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DI Deavin also praised Tomasz’s friends for the work they did in helping to catch Amies.

He said: “We have got to really acknowledge the efforts of the kids that were there.

“They very quickly did some detective work and from going through social media were able to say Leighton was responsible for this and identified him very quickly to police which enabled us to go and arrest him at his home address.

“Also a significant element of this was the information that was given to us by one member of the community, a young boy, who had to be quite brave in his actions in terms of identifying the knife to us and where that was recovered from in the Wrekenton area.

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“It had been secreted by Leighton in some bushes not all that far from the nature reserve. He played a significant role.

“Without the bravery of the kids giving their part of the story and playing their part, and also the information that they gave us, it may have taken us a lot longer to get to Leighton.

“We were able to do that really quickly through what they told us.”

The Northern Echo: Floral tributes left in memory of Tomasz Floral tributes left in memory of Tomasz (Image: Northern Echo)