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 have been jailed for life
The two were just twelve years old when they killed Shawn Seesahai aged 19 in a park in Wolverhampton with a machete
Neither boy can be named for legal reasons due to their age, but they were both sentenced to eight years and six months in a young offenders’ institution.
On the night he was killed, Shawn and two of friends travelled into Wolverhampton on the tram so one of the friends could visit his girlfriend.
Shawn, who’d been living in Birmingham, had only been in the UK for about six months, having come over from his home in Anguilla for eye surgery.
While he and one friend waited on a bench in Stowlawn playing fields, some youngsters, who had been on a nearby basketball court, came over.
Tragically the exchange that followed resulted in Shawn being fatally stabbed.
Our officers were the first at the scene and started CPR before paramedics took over. But despite all their best efforts, Shawn was declared dead at 9.11pm.
Both boys, who denied murder, refused to answer any further questions during police interviews.
But on 10 June at Nottingham Crown Court they were both convicted of Shawn’s murder. One admitted possessing a bladed article, while the second was found guilty of the same charge.
During the sentencing of the two boys, the court heard a statement from Shawn’s family of the impact of the ‘tragic, unexpected and senseless murder of our beloved son and brother’.
Shawn’s father Suresh, said: “Losing a child is a parent’s worst nightmare. It has left a huge hole in the pit of our stomach which nothing can fill, we are devastated as a family, totally heart broken and confused.”
