How do I force delete a project?

I attempted to delete a project from the web UI.
The UI indicated that the project would be deleted, but I received the following error in /var/log/gitlab/sidekiq/current
It apperas that the project cannot be found? and is not being deleted.

2017-03-23_20:45:06.53269 2017-03-23T20:45:06.532Z 28251 TID-ovis9b0a4 ProjectDestroyWorker JID-d41c47ca64e60446cbef5db9 INFO: fail: 0.148 sec 2017-03-23_20:45:06.53294 2017-03-23T20:45:06.532Z 28251 TID-ovis9b0a4 WARN: {"context":"Job raised exception","job":{"class":"ProjectDestroyWorker","args":[48,2,{}],"retry":3,"queue":"project_destroy","jid":"d41c47ca64e60446cbef5db9","created_at":1490301906.38306,"enqueued_at":1490301906.383639,"error_message":"no repository for such path","error_class":"Gitlab::Git::Repository::NoRepository","failed_at":1490301906.5319905,"retry_count":0},"jobstr":"{\"class\":\"ProjectDestroyWorker\",\"args\":[48,2,{}],\"retry\":3,\"queue\":\"project_destroy\",\"jid\":\"d41c47ca64e60446cbef5db9\",\"created_at\":1490301906.38306,\"enqueued_at\":1490301906.383639}"} 2017-03-23_20:45:06.53302 2017-03-23T20:45:06.532Z 28251 TID-ovis9b0a4 WARN: Gitlab::Git::Repository::NoRepository: no repository for such path 2017-03-23_20:45:06.53312 2017-03-23T20:45:06.533Z 28251 TID-ovis9b0a4 WARN: /opt/gitlab/embedded/service/gitlab-rails/lib/gitlab/git/repository.rb:51:inrescue in rugged’
2017-03-23_20:45:06.53317 /opt/gitlab/embedded/service/gitlab-rails/lib/gitlab/git/repository.rb:49:in `rugged’

Now the project no longer appears in the web UI, but when I try to recreate it I am not allowed because gitlab thinks that the project is still being deleted.

Does anyone know how to force delete a project from the backend sql database?

One of your processes probably existed uncleanly. Stop gitlab and make sure the project is actually deleted from the drive. Restart gitlab.

Brilliant. That did the trick.