Twenty years after the promising young footballer Kiyan Prince was murdered, a friend from his schooldays will run the London Marathon in his memory, battling a back injury to raise funds for the foundation that bears his name.
James Rollinson, who was in the same academic year as Kiyan, aims to complete the 26.2-mile course in under three hours and ten minutes this Sunday, targeting £3,000 for the Kiyan Prince Foundation. He will take on the challenge with a protruding disc in his spine.
‘A superhero’: A father’s enduring tribute
Kiyan’s father, Dr Mark Prince OBE, hailed Mr Rollinson’s effort. “James is a superhero and I’m an absolute fan of what he’s aiming to achieve,” Dr Prince said. “The pain of losing Kiyan continues. It’s going nowhere, and it doesn’t feel anything like 20 years ago.”
He added that looking at pictures of his son still brings a flood of emotions. “I’m still in shock. He would have been 35.” Kiyan, a 15-year-old in the Queens Park Rangers youth academy, was fatally stabbed on 18 May 2006 outside the London Academy in Edgware as he tried to break up a fight between other pupils.
The perpetrator, Hannad Hasan, then 17, stabbed Kiyan in the heart with a penknife. He was convicted of murder in 2007 and sentenced to life with a minimum term of 13 years. Upon his release in 2024, the 35-year-old was deported to Somalia by the Home Office.
Dr Prince, a former professional boxer who has spoken of his own past struggles with homelessness and crime, said the tragedy compelled him to act. “I couldn’t image that I would be here, two decades later, talking about knife crime.” He expressed sympathy for the parents of other young victims, adding, “I was a broken man at my worst not knowing if I could get from one day to the next.”
The foundation’s mission and lasting impact
Established in 2008, the Kiyan Prince Foundation (KPF) is Dr Prince’s lasting response to his son’s death. Its mission is to empower young people, particularly those at risk of involvement in violence, by promoting self-worth, positive decision-making, and providing preventative activities. The foundation uses boxing and life coaching to focus on self-discovery and discipline, aiming to help young people find their purpose.
To date, the foundation states it has reached over 100,000 young people through its work in schools, communities, and young offenders’ institutions. Its “Inspiring Future Champions” programme has reported significant outcomes, with 82% of participants feeling more positive about their futures, 73% reporting reduced risky behaviour, and 90% stating they had made positive changes in their lives.
KPF has achieved global recognition for innovative awareness campaigns. In 2021, marking 15 years since Kiyan’s death, EA Sports used AI technology to recreate him as a 30-year-old professional footballer in the FIFA 21 video game, an initiative that won the Cannes Campaign of the Year Award. The related “Long Live the Prince” campaign reached an estimated 1.4 billion people. Furthermore, in a 2019 fan vote, QPR renamed Loftus Road as the Kiyan Prince Foundation Stadium for the 2019-20 season.
For his services to tackling knife and gang crime, Dr Mark Prince was appointed OBE in 2019. Mr Rollinson, who has worked with the foundation for five years, said his motivation to run stems from this enduring legacy. “The 20th anniversary of Kiyan’s death is a poignant moment in the foundation’s history,” he said. “There was a huge tragedy in what happened, but Mark’s strength comes from focusing on the wonderful things Kiyan did and would have done.”
He will join tens of thousands of participants in the 2026 TCS London Marathon, which saw a record 1,133,813 public ballot entries. The race starts on The Mall on Sunday morning, with the course closing eight hours later.
