A pair of 12-year-old boys who became Britain’s youngest convicted murderers since the killers of James Bulger were today ordered to be detained in secure accommodation at His Majesty’s pleasure for a total of 17 years.
The youths were found guilty of hacking teenager Shawn Seesahai to death with a 16-inch machete in an unprovoked attack in a Wolverhampton park last November.
After fleeing the scene they went to one of the boy’s homes – where they played the violent video game Fortnite and took part in a Snapchat voice call while Mr Seesahai lay dying.
Today, Mrs Justice Tipples sentenced both boys at Nottingham Crown Court to a total of eight years and six months – meaning they will remain in custody until they are at least 20.
The sentence includes time spent living in secure accommodation where they have been since the offence last November.
Their unanimous murder convictions in June made the pair the youngest defendants convicted of murder in the UK since Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, then both 11, were found guilty in 1993 of killing two-year-old James after they abducted the toddler from a shopping centre in Bootle, Liverpool.
Shawn Seesahai, 19, who was unknown to the defendants, was hacked to death in a brutal attack at Stowlawn playing fields in Wolverhampton
The 12-year-olds’ trial heard that one of the defendants had an obsession with knives – even posing for a picture with a machete tucked into the top of his trousers hours before he committed murder
At Nottingham Crown Court today, the judge told the boys: ‘What you both did is horrific and shocking. You both killed Shawn in an attack that lasted less than a minute when he asked you to move from where you were on a park bench.
‘Shawn did not deserve to be attacked. He did not deserve to die…It’s clear that the sentence I have decided to pass cannot make that right.’
She added: ‘What you did in those few short moments has also changed your life forever. You will have to live with the consequences. I cannot be sure which one of you stabbed Shawn. Only you know that, but you acted together.’
The boys, both wearing shirt and ties and one in a waistcoat, were allowed to sit in the well of the court as they had throughout the trial.
During the brief sentencing remarks, one of the boys nodded throughout with his hands held towards his face. As he was taken away, the youth was allowed to hug his mother.
The other boy was seen biting his lip as the judge spoke and appeared shocked as the sentence was handed down.
Six members of the jury returned to Nottingham Crown Court to see the boys sentenced. Mr Seesahai’s family watched proceedings on a live videolink from their home in Anguilla.
Ahead of the hearing today, the judge warned that the sentence would not bring them comfort, but would at least bring legal proceedings to a close.
The 12-year-olds’ trial heard that one of the defendants had an obsession with knives – even posing for a picture with a machete tucked into the top of his trousers hours before he committed murder.
Jon Venables and Robert Thompson became the youngest people to be convicted of murder
Venables and Thompson tortured and killed two-year-old James Bulger (pictured) in 1993, when he was just ten years old
The picture – sent from the youth’s mobile phone and showing him masked near railings in the street – is believed to have been taken at around 1am.
Jurors were told the image was forwarded to the boy’s girlfriend and his co-defendant, captioned Prison Freestyle, the name of a track by a drill rapper he idolised. The rapper, SJ, is currently serving life for a machete murder committed in Wood Green, north London, in 2019.
The month-long trial at Nottingham Crown Court heard Mr Seesahai, 19, had travelled to the UK from the British Overseas Territory of Anguilla in the Caribbean for medical treatment. He was stabbed with such ferocity with the 16-inch blade that it almost passed through his entire body.
Jurors were told Mr Seesahai was shoulder-barged by the smaller of the two defendants, who ‘often’ carried the machete, before being punched, kicked, stamped on and ‘chopped’ at with the weapon.
Mr Seesahai and a friend had been killing time in Wolverhampton’s Stowlawn playing fields last November while another friend visited his girlfriend at her nearby home.
The victim’s friend told the trial he was forced to run for his life but Mr Seesahai stumbled as he tried to flee from the boys.
The two schoolboys blamed each other for the attack but jurors unanimously convicted both of them of murder. One was also found guilty of possessing a bladed article.
The court heard the younger of the two boys bleached the murder weapon and hid it in his bed frame following the murder.
During the trial the boys dressed in shirts and ties and looked studious in the spectacles each donned to give evidence.
The trial heard that Mr Seesahai was with a friend at the time when he was brutally attacked after ‘exchanging words’ with one of the 12-year-olds near a park bench
Their clean-cut appearance was a far cry from the image one of the boys presented on social media where he could be seen making shooting gestures.
Police only realised their suspects were barely of high school age the day after the killing, when a girl they had been with that evening told a parent, who called police.
Both boys, who had been friends for at least two years, and were each known to police, lived near the murder scene.
In July, the judge rejected a request from media organisations including the Mail to strip the boys of their automatic right to anonymity due to their age.
Mrs Justice Tipples said the welfare of the boys outweighed the wider public interest and open justice principles.
Yesterday(Thurs) the two-day sentencing hearing was told budding engineer Mr Seesahai’s ‘senseless’ murder had ‘devastated’ his parents, Suresh and Maneshwary Seesahai -who had to exhaust their savings to fly his body home – and sister Shana.
Forensics and police officers stand behind a cordon near a blue tent close to the murder scene
In a heartrending victim impact statement from the family, read to the court by Dorothea Hodge, the UK representative for Anguilla, they said: ‘Losing a child is a parents’ worst nightmare, and to put it all down in a statement on how it has impacted our lives would take more than a day to read.
‘It has left a huge hole in the pit of our stomach which nothing can fill, we are devastated as a family, totally heartbroken and confused.’
They said they had not had an unbroken night’s sleep since the murder and were tormented by ‘how scared’ Mr Seesahai ‘must have been’ in his final moments.
Mr Seesahai, who was living in Handsworth, Birmingham at the time of his death, had cataracts that he had been unable to get treatment for in Anguilla. After successful surgery in the UK he was ‘able to start planning for the future and think about getting an education’, prosecutor Michelle Heeley KC said.
However, his life was brutally cut short after he and his friend encountered the boys near a bench in the park.
Ms Heeley told jurors that despite the fact he had ‘offered no violence, nor done anything to offend’, he became the victim of a savage attack after one of the boys deliberately ‘shoulder brushed’ him then pulled a machete from his trousers.
An image retrieved from the phone of one of the boys showed long knives and swords placed on a bed
A machete pictured under the bed of one of the attackers. Family members of both the victim and the defendants cried and hugged each other in the public gallery as the jurors found both boys guilty of murder and one guilty of possessing a bladed article
Mr Seesahai ended up on the floor where jurors heard he was punched, kicked and knifed – struck so hard on the skull with the machete that a piece of bone came away.
Mrs Justice Tipples was told on Thursday by Ms Heeley there was ‘little precedent’ for the case and the boys are thought to be the country’s youngest ever knife murderers.
However, Ms Heeley said that for convicted murderers under the age of 14, the starting point for the minimum term was 13 years – although this could go up or down depending on aggravating or mitigating factors.
The youths were also convicted of possession of a bladed article – with one admitting the offence before the trial and the other found guilty by jurors.
The court heard pre-sentence reports said both boys continue to deny the offence of murder, but both ‘recognised the impact’ and had ‘regret’ for the suffering of Mr Seesahai’s family.
The Snapchat messages the two killers sent to each other after they killed Suresh Seesahai
The boy who admitted owning the machete lived with his grandmother and had been known to social services since he was a baby.
In the months preceding the killing, police had recovered blades from his home – and he was so fixated with them that even following his arrest for the murder, the boy was found drawing pictures of knives while in custody.
His barrister, Rachel Brand KC, said it was an ‘important feature’ that the crime was not premeditated, and claimed evidence showed it was his co-defendant who delivered the fatal blow with the blade.
She added: ‘Your Ladyship is dealing with a child who according to doctors is immature when compared to others the same age.
‘He lacked, as a child, foresight of the consequences of his actions, and he lacked the ability to regulate his behaviour in the same way adults do.
CCTV footage revealed the last moments of Shawn Seesahai as he headed to the park
‘He wishes that they hadn’t gone to the park and this hadn’t happened.’
She said he had been ‘groomed, exploited and trafficked by older youths and young men’ locally, who had ‘encouraged him in criminality and the possession of knives.’
The court also heard he came from a ‘deprived home with experience of offending from family members.’
Paul Lewis KC, defending the second boy, said it wasn’t accepted that he was the one who stabbed Mr Seesahai.
He added: ‘There is not one word of evidence to suggest he ever previously carried a knife.
‘He has had real difficulties in his upbringing. There have been changes in accommodation including living in a refuge, and repeated changes in schooling.’
Mr Seesahai can be seen leaving Handsworth, an inner-city area of Birmingham, with two friends at around 5.30pm, getting onto a tram at Winson Green station
At 6.34pm, Mr Seesahai and one friend then leave the park to go to a local petrol station
However, Mrs Justice Tipples said reports showed there had been no children’s services involvement with the boy, and he had a ‘good relationship’ with his parents and sibling.
The boy who owned the machete told jurors he bought the deadly weapon for £40 from a ‘friend of a friend’. But police suspect he sourced it online, where websites sold such blades for as little as £20.
That defendant had previously been arrested for theft and violence-related offences. But neither child had previously been charged with any offence, or dealt with for knife crime-related matters.
On Tuesday, new legislation came into effect making it illegal to possess zombie knives and machetes.
Amendments to the Criminal Justice Act 1988 also make it an offence to manufacture, import, sell or supply these items.
Jonathan Roe, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said today: ‘As prosecutors, we often deal with harrowing cases, but this case is particularly distressing due to the complete senselessness and devastating consequences of the defendants’ actions.
‘The defendants at the age of 12 should have been enjoying their childhood rather than arming themselves with a machete and killing an innocent person.
‘Shawn Seesahai lost his life in a horrifically cruel way. I hope today’s sentencing serves as a reminder of the dangers of carrying machetes.
‘Shawn’s family have shown remarkable strength and dignity in the aftermath of such a tragedy and our thoughts are with them at this difficult time.’
