Two 13-year-old boys have been sentenced for a minimum of eight years and six months for the murder of Shawn Seesahai who was killed in a machete attack in Wolverhampton in November last year.
In her remarks, High Court judge Mrs Justice Tipples called the case “horrific and shocking”, and said while the incident was “spur of the moment” rather than premeditated, she was sure the pair were trying to kill Mr Seesahai during the attack.
“From the nature of these injuries, that the defendents intended to kill Shawn. They acted together to do so, although I cannot be sure which one inflicted the fatal stab wound,” she said.
She detailed what she had taken into account during sentencing, including the defendents’ young age – both 12 years old at the time – and the first defendant was “the victim of trafficking and extremely vulnerable.”
She concluded by offering condolences to Mr Seesahai’s family and thanked them for the “dignified way in which they have conducted themselves” during the trial.
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.”
The court heard how the teenager 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 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.
Their identities are protected by a court order which gives them anonymity until the age of 18, we cannot even disclose their race. A media application was put in to lift the anonymity order. However it was denied by a judge who said the welfare of the boys outweighed the public interest.
The boys are believed to be the youngest defendants convicted of murder in Britain since Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, who abducted and killed two-year-old James Bulger in 1993.
The family of murdered teenager Shawn Seesahai have said the sentences given to the 19-year-old’s murderers are not enough to stop other children from carrying knives.
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