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Two boys thought to be Britain’s youngest knife killers who stabbed a stranger to death in a “horrific and shocking” machete attack have both been detained for more than eight years.
The killers, both aged 12 at the time of the incident but now 13, were found guilty in June of murdering 19-year-old Shawn Seesahai in the random and “senseless” attack.
The teenager was stabbed in the heart and suffered a skull fracture on Wolverhampton’s Stowlawn playing fields on 13 November last year.
The defendants are believed to be the youngest defendants convicted of murder in Britain since Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, both aged 11, were found guilty in 1993 of killing two-year-old James Bulger.
Mrs Justice Tipples sentenced the defendants, both from Wolverhampton, to life with a minimum term of eight years and six months at Nottingham Crown Court on Friday following a two-day hearing.
They have not been named after the High Court judge rejected a media application in July, ruling that the welfare of the youths outweighed the wider public interest and open justice principles.
Passing sentence, she told the defendants: “What you both did is horrific and shocking. You did not know Shawn, he was a stranger to you. You were both out in Wolverhampton with a machete in your possession. You both killed shawn in an attack that last less than a minute when he asked you to move from a bench … I am sure from the injuries that Shawn suffered that you intended to kill him. Shawn did not deserve to be attacked, Shawn did not deserve to die.”
She also told the pair they have caused “never-ending grief” to Mr Seesahai’s loved ones.
Mr Seesahai’s family told the court on Thursday that they are haunted by thoughts of how scared he must have been when he was killed.
In a victim impact statement read by the Government of Anguilla’s international representative Dorothea Hodge, relatives described the Anguilla-born teenager’s murder as tragic, unexpected and senseless, and having been committed “for no reason at all”.
A month-long trial was told that Mr Seesahai was shoulder-barged by the smaller of the two defendants, who “often” carried a machete with a 42.5cm-long blade, before being punched, kicked, stamped on and “chopped” at with the weapon.
The victim’s friend told the trial he was forced to run for his life but the 19-year-old stumbled as he tried to flee from the boys.
Family members of both Mr Seesahai and the defendants cried and hugged each other as jurors found both boys guilty of murder and one guilty of possessing a bladed article.
The pair blamed each other at their trial and still deny being responsible for the murder, their sentencing hearing was told.
In an interview released after the verdicts, Mr Seesahai’s parents Suresh and Maneshwary said they will never be able to get over the loss of their son who always told them he would “shine” and take care of them.
More follows on this breaking news story…
