Kinsella was born the son of cab driver George Kinsella and his wife Deborah, a school secretary. He has a half-brother, three half-sisters and a younger full sister. Like his older half-sister Brooke Kinsella, who played Kelly Taylor in the BBC soap opera EastEnders from 2001 to 2004, Kinsella had been involved in acting and he had a bit part as Tyrone Dooley in a 2004 episode of The Bill. He was a popular and academically gifted student. Friends spoke of his caring and comical nature, adding he was “full of energy” and that he was “the life and soul of his class”.

As a result of the murder of Westley Odger on 12 September 2005, his mother, Ann Oakes Odger, began a campaign to bring knife crime in line with gun crime. This resulted in a new 25-year knife murder tariff through the Schedule 21 Review of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 which was relevant to the sentencing in this case.

Braithwaite of Bow, London, was aged 19 at the time of Kinsella’s murder and 20 at the time of sentencing. With a height of 6’6″, Braithwaite had hoped to become a professional goalkeeper and played in an Islington youth league until its closure when he was 14. He had also worked as a coach at a local leisure centre. Prior to the murder, Braithwaite had a reprimand for possession of cannabis and was convicted of attempted theft of a laptop computer from a fellow teenager. He was given a one-year detention and training order in 2006 but during 2007 his sentence was cut on appeal to community service.

In August 2008, it was reported that he had passed all of his GCSEs, receiving two grade A*, three As, four Bs and one C.

On 28 June 2008, Kinsella was out celebrating the end of his GCSE exams with friends in Shillibeers Brasserie Bar (now called ‘The Depot N7’), North Road, London. During this time, an altercation broke out between his friend Alfie and a man named Osman Ozdemir over the phrase “What are you looking at?” Having been separated by a door supervisor, a friend of Ozdemir’s, Jade Braithwaite, was heard saying phrases including “Tell your boy if he wants trouble, I’ve got my tool on me and it will open you up”, “I’ll stab people up”, “If you want it, I’ll give it to you” and “Don’t you know who I am?”. Braithwaite was also said to be frequently motioning to the inside of his jeans as if he had a weapon. The altercation between Alfie and Ozdemir went outside the bar, where Ozdemir and another of Braithwaite’s friends were glassed. Braithwaite and his friends subsequently fled the scene.

On 13 October 2008 all three defendants pleaded not guilty to the charge of murder. A 7-week trial began at the Old Bailey on 27 April 2009. The judge was the Common Serjeant of London, Brian Barker, QC. The Crown Prosecution Service was represented by Nicholas Hilliard, QC and Duncan Penny. Braithwaite was represented by Orlando Pownall, QC and Nerida Hartford-Bell. Alleyne was represented by Sallie Bennett-Jenkins, QC and Z. Ahmed. Kika was represented by Diana Ellis, QC and James Nichol.

At the Old Bailey on 12 June 2009, Judge Brian Barker QC sentenced Braithwaite, Alleyne and Kika each to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 19 years. Passing sentence, the judge described the attack on Kinsella as “brutal, cowardly and totally unjustified”, adding that “your blind and heartless anger that night defies belief.” He continued, saying that there was “no possible excuse” for such an “arrogant and unfeeling attack on someone who had done nothing”. He also condemned them for picking on “an obviously younger and smaller lone victim” and for their total lack of remorse.

A 50 minute documentary entitled My Brother Ben: Brooke Kinsella’s Story was aired on BBC One on 16 June 2009. It followed Brooke Kinsella’s investigation of the underlying causes of knife crime during the period from her brother’s death to the end of the court case. Brooke also travelled to New York to see prisons using short, sharp shock treatments to rehabilitate young offenders. The documentary also points out the success of Operation Blunt 2, which carried out over 290,000 stop and searches, leading to over 10,000 arrests and the confiscation of over 5,500 knives within the timeline of the documentary.

A book by Brooke Kinsella, entitled Why Ben?: A Sister’s Story of Heartbreak and Love for the Brother She Lost was released on 3 September 2009.

On 28 June 2009, it was reported that all three killers were set to appeal against their sentences stating the tariff was “too harsh”. They claimed that the publicity surrounding the case was a factor in their sentences. On 13 November 2009 Juress Kika lost his appeal to challenge his 19 year sentence. He argued his sentence was “manifestly excessive”; however, The Lord Judge, Mr Justice Penry-Davey and Mr Justice Henriques rejected this statement saying that the term could not “remotely” be described as excessive. They concluded that “there is no true mitigation. There was no guilty plea, no remorse, and no insight into the devastation that had been caused”. They accepted that the applicant was young when the murder was committed but added that Kika “knew exactly what he was doing. They all did. They were all equally involved. They all intended to kill the young victim. They had hunted him down and mercilessly done him to death to revenge an insignificant slight for which he bore no responsibility whatsoever.”

After agreeing on request by the Kinsella family and due to the public outrage surrounding the case, Justice Secretary Jack Straw announced the minimum tariff for murders committed with a knife would rise from 15 to 25 years, and this happened in 2010. This new development was being called “Ben’s Law” and Ben’s father George hoped that the new law would act as a deterrent to anyone thinking of carrying a knife.