Two boys believed to be the UK’s youngest knife murderers have been detained for a minimum term of more than eight years.
The pair were both aged 12 when they killed 19-year-old Shawn Seesahai in a machete attack in a Wolverhampton park on 13 November last year.
They are thought to be the youngest children to be convicted of murder in Britain since Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, who were both aged 11 when they were found guilty in 1993 of killing two-year-old James Bulger.
The judge, Mrs Justice Tipples, previously rejected a media application to lift the reporting restrictions which prevent Mr Seesahai’s murderers from being identified because of their age.
The victim’s parents, who are from the small Caribbean island of Anguilla, told Sky News they are still in a “lot of pain” and wonder whether their son was calling for “mummy or daddy” for help when he was attacked.
Mr Seesahai had travelled to the UK for cataract surgery and was due to start an engineering course in Birmingham the day after he was attacked.
One of the killers posed for a picture wearing a mask with his machete, which had a 42.5cm black blade, tucked into the top of his trousers hours before the murder.
Nottingham Crown Court was told Mr Seesahai, who was a stranger to the boys, was walking through Stowlawn playing fields with a friend when he was shoulder-barged by one of the 12-year-olds.
Mr Seesahai was then punched, kicked, stamped on and chopped at with the weapon, suffering wounds to his back, legs and skull, with the more than 20cm deep fatal blow puncturing his heart.
One boy cleaned his machete with bleach and hid it under his bed following the murder.
He wrote in social media messages “it is what it is” and “idrc” (I don’t really care).
Both blamed each other for inflicting the fatal blow but prosecutors said they “engaged in a joint attack upon a man who had done nothing wrong, a man with no weapon, who was utterly defenceless on the ground”.
The boys – who were 12 when they were convicted and are now aged 13 – are believed to be the youngest children to be found guilty of a knife murder in the UK.
One of the boys admitted possession of the knife prior to the trial, while the other was found guilty of the charge.
Rachel Brand KC, defending the boy who admitted buying and owning the machete, said he had been “groomed” and exploited by older youths and young men in the wider community and “wishes he hadn’t taken the machete out with him”.
“He wishes they hadn’t gone to the park. He wishes that this hadn’t happened,” she said.
Paul Lewis KC, defending the other boy, said he had never been involved in criminality before, adding: “This was a one-off incident that was not premeditated – over in seconds – with admittedly tragic results.”
‘I felt shocked they’re so young’
Mr Seesahai’s parents said they were struck by how young their son’s killers looked when they attended the trial.
“I felt shocked they’re so young, they’re so small and they did something like that,” his mother Manashwary Seesahai told Sky News.
“From the time I see them, I get angry because of what they did to my son.”
The parents had planned to move to the UK to be with their son and send his younger sister Shana, 15, to school, but his murder “changed everything”.
“Now I’m too afraid to take my daughter,” Mrs Seesahai said, speaking to Sky News from her son’s favourite beach, Crocus Bay, where they scattered his ashes.
“It just hurt me so bad. In time to come he would’ve married, had kids, we would’ve had grandchildren and enjoy our grandkids and nothing like that anymore.”
Mr Seesahai’s parents urged children to “think about what they’re doing” and not to carry a weapon, but wanted to see his killers jailed for 30 years.
“You have to have a proper sentencing for knife crime. Murder is murder,” his father Suresh Seesahai said.
“They didn’t kill my son the way that someone should be killed. They murdered him, they chop him, they chop his leg, they chop his shoulder, they beat him… they do a monstrous job to him.”