Following their utterly senseless and arbitrary machete assault that killed an innocent adolescent, two 12-year-old boys were today given an eight-year detention order apiece.
The youths were found guilty of hacking teenager Shawn Seesahai to death with a 16-inch machete in a Wolverhampton park last November.
The two, who became the country’s youngest knife killers ever and the youngest convicted murderers since James Bulger’s killers, will be housed in secure quarters for a total of 17 years at the discretion of His Majesty.
Once they had left the scene, they returned to one of the boys’ houses, and while Mr Seesahai was dying, they played the violent video game Fortnite.
After the murder, one of the killers said on Snapchat: ‘Everyone’s talking about it; literally everyone knows.’ His accomplice responded with the 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’.
Hours before he killed someone, one of the defendants even posed for a photo with a machete tucked into the front of his trousers out of preoccupation with the weapon.
The 16-inch blade was used to stab Mr Seesahai, 19, an Anguilla native who had been living in the UK for six months, so violently that it nearly went through his whole body.
His grief-stricken parents said he called for them as he lay dying and had been excited to start a new engineering course the next day.
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’, who posted fireworks through letterboxes, damaged streetlights, and stole scooters in a reign of terror that plagued the neighbourhood.
The judge said he lived in a refuge and posed a high risk of serious harm to others. She said the other boy had loving parents and ‘felt remorse’ for what he had done.
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.
Following their unanimous murder verdicts in June, the two became the youngest defendants to be found guilty of murder in the United Kingdom since 1993, when Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, both 11 years old, were found guilty of killing two-year-old James after kidnapping the child from a Bootle, Liverpool, shopping mall.
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 shirts 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, who are now 13: ‘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 23-cm-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.
Eight years! Is this what an innocent young man’s life is worth now in Britain? I am appalled, and I hope that this leniency of sentencing is put into question.
It’s unbelievable. When did life become so cheap in the UK?
These boys are murderers at the age of 12 years old. Can you imagine what they will be like when they get out?
Both of them will probably be back inside after their release for some other heinous crime; only after being in prison for that amount of time, they will become smarter. All victims deserve better justice than this.
There should be an automatic 10-year sentence for even having a machete outside of a property they own. Double if they use it against anyone, even if it is just threatening to. Anything resulting in injury or death added on to that. They should be looking at being on a pension before they are even considered for release, if ever.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 