Two 12-year-old boys were today ordered to be detained for eight years each after hacking an innocent teenager to death with a machete in a completely random and unprovoked attack.
The youths were found guilty of hacking teenager Shawn Seesahai to death with a 16-inch machete in a Wolverhampton park last November.
The pair, who became Britain’s youngest convicted murderers since the killers of James Bulger, will be kept in secure accommodation at His Majesty’s pleasure for a total of 17 years.
After fleeing the scene they went to one of the boy’s homes where they played the violent video game Fortnite while Mr Seesahai lay dying.
After the murder, one of the killers said on Snapchat: ‘Everyone’s talking abt (sic) it, literally everyone, everyone knows.’ His accomplice responded with the voice note: ‘It is what it is.’
They then shared more messages, saying: ‘I’m scared man’ – before the other says ‘I’m not’, followed by the acronym ‘IDRC’ which means ‘I don’t really care’.
Locals living near the Wolverhampton park where the 19-year-old was stabbed to death told of how one of the tearaways was a ‘nasty piece of work’. Residents described him as a ‘nasty piece of work’ and accused him of posting fireworks through letterboxes, damaging streetlights and stealing scooters in a reign of terror that plagued the neighbourhood.
One neighbour said the killer would ride across the playing fields on his mountain bike and hang around at night outside shops and alleyways where he would cut the wires on lampposts
At Nottingham Crown Court today, Mrs Justice Tipples ordered each boy to be detained at His Majesty’s pleasure for a minimum 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.
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.’
The family of Shawn Seesahai said they are haunted by thoughts of how scared he must have been when he was killed.
In a victim impact statement read to the, relatives of Mr Seesahai described the Anguilla-born 19-year-old’s killing as tragic, unexpected and senseless, and having been committed ‘for no reason at all’.
Relatives of Mr Seesahai, who were forced to take out a loan to travel to the UK to view the 20-day trial, have been watching the sentencing hearing via a videolink.
The family’s statement read: ‘We make this statement in relation to the tragic, unexpected and senseless murder of our beloved son and brother Shawn, who was tragically taken from us in November last year.
‘As a family we are struggling in so many ways since Shawn was taken from us, especially in the horrific way in which he was taken.
‘Losing a child is a parent’s worst nightmare. 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.’
The statement added that Shawn was incredibly close to his younger sister, who had always dreamed of being there for his wedding and him being there for hers.
The family members, including parents Suresh and Maneshwary and sister Shana, added: ‘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 are what his last moments were and how scared he must have been. It continually breaks my heart.
‘The impact on us as a family is devastating, its 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.’
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.
The judge also told the boys: ‘When you killed Shawn he was 19, starting out in his adult life with everything to live for.
‘His parents have lost their son. His sister has lost her brother.
‘What you did is horrific and shocking. You did not know Shawn, he was a stranger to you. You both killed Shawn in an attack that lasted less than a minute when he asked you to move (from a bench).
‘I am sure you intended to kill him.’
The judge added that she could not be sure which of the boys had inflicted a 23cm-deep wound which almost passed all the way through Mr Seesahai’s body.
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.
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.
One of the 12-year-olds found guilty of murdering Shawn Seesahai had an obsession with knives – even posing for a snap with his machete tucked into the top of his trousers hours before he committed murder.
The picture sent from the youth’s mobile phone, 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 with rapper SJ’s Prison Freestyle track attached to it.
During the youth’s evidence to the court, he claimed he had accidentally attached the song to the photo and denied knowing SJ’s real name or that the singer is currently serving life for a machete murder committed in Wood Green, London, in 2019.
The boy was also asked by prosecutor Michelle Heeley KC to demonstrate to jurors how he concealed the murder weapon, which had a 42.5cm-long blade, inside his left trouser leg.
In the hours after the murder, on Wolverhampton’s Stowlawn playing fields, the same youth – who admitted unlawful possession of the machete but denied any other wrongdoing – was given a lift home by a family member, bleached his machete and hid it under his bed.
In social media exchanges involving his co-defendant and a girl witness who later attended a police station with her mother to make a statement, the boy said of the stabbing: ‘It is what it is.’
He also wrote that he was not scared and added ‘idrc’ – text message shorthand for ‘I don’t really care.’
After going to his home to arrest the boy on the night after the killing, police found him in the lounge watching television.
He was then given a formal caution advising him of his rights by a detective constable and responded: ‘What murder? Why would I kill someone?’ and ‘I haven’t done anything.’
Both defendants wore a shirt and tie to give their evidence accompanied by intermediaries, having been allowed to sit in the well of the court near relatives rather than in the dock.
Court sessions were shortened during the trial to mirror school lessons, a small courtroom was chosen so they would not be intimidated by their surroundings and they were given permission to use so-called fidget aids to calm their nerves.
The youth who owned the black-bladed machete – which he said he bought from someone he would not name for £40 – was incriminated by his heavily bloodstained clothing and manbag.
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.
A small amount of blood was also found on the inside of the right cuff, while a sample of the blood from the right sleeve, which in the opinion of a forensic scientist was caused by contact with a blood wet object, was submitted for DNA profiling.
A complete DNA profile matching that of Mr Seesahai was obtained from the sample, meaning it was one billion times more likely the blood originated from the victim rather than an unknown unrelated person.
Similar tests were also conducted on the boy’s jogging bottoms after areas of bloodstaining, including areas of light contact bloodstaining, were present on the upper left front.
A small heavy bloodstain was present on the left calf area, and ‘light contact bloodstaining’ was present on the inside front of the waistband and on the inside of the left pocket.
There were a number of small spots of blood on the upper right front which, in the opinion of the forensic scientist, were caused when airborne droplets of blood landed on this area of the joggers.
One of the spots of blood was submitted for DNA profiling and was found to match Mr Seesahai.
Defence lawyers in the trial did not dispute the opinion of a forensic scientist that the stains on the clothing were ‘in keeping with the items being in contact with and in close proximity to a source of Shawn Seesahai’s blood such as Shawn Seesahai when he was bleeding’.
Bloodstaining was also found on the murder weapon – which had a 6cm-wide blade near its tip – and swabs taken from the manbag also matched Mr Seesahai’s DNA.
Forensic tests were also carried out on the clothing of the other defendant, seized from a bedroom washing basket after his arrest around 25 hours after the stabbing.
No blood and no DNA matching Mr Seesahai were found on the clothing or the boy’s left trainer, but a small ill-defined bloodstain measuring 3mm by 5mm was found on the front of the right trainer, matching Mr Seesahai.
Witness evidence from a teenage girl who knew the boys and Mr Seesahai’s friend Derron Harrigan also helped to convict the boys.
In evidence to the trial via a video link, Mr Harrigan said he and Mr Seesahai were threatened shortly after sitting on a bench, where they had been discussing their plans for Christmas.
After shoulder-barging Mr Seesahai, Mr Harrigan said the shorter youth ‘reached for his blade and Shawn shouted ‘run bro”.
‘The dude took it out of its sheath,’ the witness told the court.
‘We started to run but Shawn tripped. I was running for my life – I couldn’t stay there and watch.’
Neither boy has any previous convictions, cautions or reprimands, but police said after the case that the youth who hid the murder weapon had been ‘dealt with’ previously in relation to an incident of theft not related to knives.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
‘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.’
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.
Speaking after today’s sentencing, a senior West Midlands Police officer has said the murder of Mr Seesahai was both ‘shocking and saddening’.
Chief Superintendent Kim Madill said: ‘Shawn was only 19 when his life was taken at the hands of two boys, then aged just 12, who had armed themselves with a machete.
‘That reality has had a huge impact on us all, it is both shocking and saddening. The impact of knife crime is devastating no matter where you live in the country, this is an issue that affects us all.
‘Much work has been done and we have had successes in some areas, however, this is clearly not enough.
‘We are listening to families affected by knife crime and acting on their feedback to see what more we can do with partners to stop the devastation caused by knife crime.
‘Our responsibility is to work together with partners to understand why children and young people think it is OK to carry weapons and take further action to stop this extremely dangerous behaviour.’
And 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.’