Britain’s youngest knife killers could be freed by age of 20

Two boys, now 13, sentenced to life with a minimum of eight years and six months for machete murder of Shawn Seesahai, 19

Britain’s youngest knife murderers could be free by the time they are 20 years old.
The two boys were 12 years old when they attacked Shawn Seesahai, 19, stabbing him in the heart in a Wolverhampton park in November last year.
On Friday, a judge jailed the pair for life with a minimum of eight years and six months.
They were the youngest people to be convicted of murder since Jon Venables and Robert Thompson were detained over the torture and murder of James Bulger in 1993.
Mr Seesahai’s killers, both now 13, cannot be named because of a court anonymity order. The judge said that naming one of the 12 year-olds who had “extremely complex needs” would be detrimental to his welfare and treatment, which outweighed the arguments that it was in the public interest.
Both youths were allowed to leave the dock and sit in the back row of the court benches on Friday as High Court judge Mrs Justice Tipples described their attack as “horrific and shocking”.
She said: “When you killed Shawn he was 19 starting out on his adult life with everything to live for. His parents have lost their son, his sister has lost her brother… that loss will be with them all the time and their lives have been changed forever.
“What you both did is horrific and shocking. You did not know Shawn, he was a stranger to you.”
Mr Seesahai, from Anguilla, had come to Britain for eye surgery and was discussing plans for Christmas with a friend when he was attacked.
He died at the scene after being stabbed by the nearly 17in-long (42.5cm) blade.
The fatal wound to his back was more than 20cm deep and went through his heart, almost coming out of his chest.
His parents have spoken of their anger and criticising the boys’ sentences, saying they were too lenient.
Maneshwary Seesahai, his mother, told the BBC: “I’m not happy. All the children in the UK will see that they only get eight years [and six months] and they will do the same thing.”
Suresh Seesahai, his father, added “The police did a good job, but I’m not satisfied with the justice system.
“Fifteen years would have been better, because they will come out and still have a life at the age of 20.”
Explaining her reasons for the length of the minimum terms after the boys were taken down to begin their sentences of detention, Mrs Justice Tipples said the murder was aggravated by the fact it was an attack involving two offenders.
Mitigating factors included the fact the “spur-of-the-moment attack” was not premeditated, and the young age of the defendants, who were told they would remain in separate secure units where they were held on remand during their trial.
The “extremely vulnerable” first defendant, who admitted buying the murder weapon from a friend for £40 about a month before the attack, had been “groomed and exploited” by others, the court heard.
The judge said the first defendant had had “very many adverse childhood experiences” including falling victim to exploitation by criminals and “multiple traumas” in childhood for which he was not responsible.
“I agree with the authors of the (pre-sentence) report that he does not at this stage have the maturity to fully appreciate the consequences of his actions,” the judge added.
The court heard the second defendant had a supportive and loving relationship with his parents and was not previously known to the police.
After refusing to answer police questions in the aftermath of the murder, the boys both gave evidence to jurors, blaming each other for inflicting the fatal blow.
As well as failing to summon help for Mr Seesahai, the youths showed no remorse for what they had done in the 24 hours before their arrest, with one cleaning the machete with bleach and hiding it under his bed.
They told the court they both played video games in the hours after the killing, claiming they did not know Mr Seesahai had died until the following day.
Jurors heard one of the defendants posed for a photograph with the murder weapon, wearing a mask, hours before the killing. He was found to have 11 areas of blood staining on his clothing.
The boy was also seen with blood on his hands in the aftermath of the murder, while his friend had a small area of blood staining on his right trainer.
The youth who owned the black-bladed machete was incriminated by his heavily bloodstained clothing and bag. He said he bought the machete for £40 from a “friend of a friend” who he refused to name, but police said there was evidence he had searched for knives online.
His hoodie, found by police inside out and mixed in with other clothes in a washing basket, was bloodstained on the front of the right sleeve, the front and back of the left sleeve, the right chest and the lower left front.
Officers searched a storage space under a bed and recovered a machete. A tracksuit with apparent blood stains on it was also seized from a laundry basket at one of the schoolboys’ homes.
Jonathan Roe, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “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.”
On Friday, Shawn’s family told of their heartbreak in a moving impact statement read to the court by Dorothea Hodge, the UK representative for Anguilla.
It read: “Mentally it has been hard for any of us to function normally, none of us have had an unbroken night’s sleep since Shawn was taken from us, every time I close my eyes all I can think about is what his last moments were, and how scared he must have been, it continually breaks my heart.
“As well as the emotional and mental anguish we are going through, we have also suffered financially. No one expects to have to bury their child, and we were not prepared for this. In order to repatriate Shawn’s body back home from the UK, we had to use all of our savings. And in order to then fly back over to the UK to attend the trial, we had to take out a loan to fund the flights and accommodation.
“The impact on us as a family is devastating, it’s hard to believe that we will ever come to terms with what has happened. We will never get to see Shawn get married or have a family of his own, these things have been taken from us for what appears to be no reason at all.”
Sir Keir Starmer, Prime Minister, has said he was “shocked” by the murder.
In a post on X, Sir Keir said: “When I read about Shawn Seesahai’s murder last November, I was shocked to my core.
“In my five years as director of public prosecutions, I never encountered a case like this.
“That a murder so brutal could be carried out by 12-year-olds is hard to believe.
“Young children should not have access to knives.
“We need to tackle the crisis head-on. My Government is committed to halving knife crime and taking back our streets.”