West Midlands Police reveal what they think is driving knife crime – amid family’s shock at age of killers
“Brave” and “funny” with a “weird sense of humour” is how Shana Seesahai describes her older brother Shawn.
Growing up on the small Caribbean Island of Anguilla, the two siblings developed an extremely close bond. Shawn was very protective of his little sister, five years his junior.
“Almost every day I wake up and think about him. My mind just goes on him immediately,” says Shana, 15.
“In my mind I don’t feel like he’s passed away, I know he has, but it doesn’t feel like that.”
Shawn was beaten and stabbed to death with a machete by two 12-year-old boys on 13 November 2023 in Wolverhampton. He was 19 years old.
He’d travelled to the UK for cataract surgery and was planning on building a life in the West Midlands. He was murdered the day before he was due to start a course in engineering in Birmingham.
Shawn had phoned his younger sister earlier that day.
Shana Seesahai
She remembers: “He called me in school in break time, and he asked me how I was and stuff like that. A few minutes later we finished talking and he told me that he loves me and we’ll talk later. But then it didn’t come.
“That was the last day that he told me that he loved me.”
Shana cannot understand why Shawn was murdered.
“It’s shocking. Wow, 12 years old?! It doesn’t make sense, it’s just crazy.”
Family scattered Shawn Seesahai’s ashes on his favourite beach
Shawn’s murderers, both now 13, can’t be named for legal reasons.
They will be sentenced on 27 September at Nottingham Crown Court. They are the youngest ever knife killers in the UK.
Adam, (not his real name), knows them both.
“It was just shocking,” he says.
“I thought [one of the boys] was going to grow up to be a basketballer or something. I didn’t expect him to do something like that.”
He describes the other boy who killed Shawn as a “bad breed”.
Adam is 14. He says it’s common for children to carry knives in this area and admits he sometimes goes out with knives after being threatened with blades multiple times.
“I can’t let that happen again. It’s real life. It’s nothing fake. It’s not nothing to joke about because you can get killed.”
The CCTV footage of the attack on Shawn is too grainy to know what truly happened.
CCTV footage examined by police investigating the murder
Shawn and his killers were strangers and Shawn’s murder seems to have been completely unprovoked.
He was unarmed, while they had a machete. The boy who owned the weapon had posed with it earlier that day for a photo that was uploaded to Snapchat.
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The West Midlands has the highest rate of knife crime in the country.
Inspector Colin Gallier leads West Midlands Police’s youth violence and knife crime team. He says social media has become a “massively powerful tool” in fuelling knife crime in the region.
“Certainly, we do see young people and groups and gangs promoting themselves, almost mimicking other target rival gangs and that itself incites violence, an opportunity for them to raise their profile and potentially intimidate others as well,” he says.
But there is no suggestion Shawn was involved with gangs. He was simply, and tragically, in the wrong place at the wrong time.
So why is knife violence so high in the West Midlands?
A machete hidden under a bed, which was found by officers investigating the killing
“It’s poverty-driven,” says Malachi Nunes, who mentors young people in the region in an effort to reduce knife crime. He has worked with children as young as nine years old.
“When you see the area they’re from… low income. That’s kind of the driver behind a lot of these things,” he adds.
“Some of the youths carry knives because they want to go rob someone else for something they don’t have, and because there are some other youths that are doing the same thing. When they both meet up it’s a case of who’s backing down first.”
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Inspector Gallier says when he asks young people why they carry knives, he often hears that it’s for protection.
On patrol with the inspector and his team in Birmingham city centre, we see this play out when a member of the public reports seeing someone armed with a blade.
After chasing him down, officers search him and find a large kitchen knife hidden in the leg of his tracksuit bottoms.
“We’ve done some immediate police checks and from our records, it seems that this individual has been the victim of street robberies in the past,” says Inspector Gallier.
The boy they’ve arrested is just 15 years old.
Nigel Farage has told Sky News he “can’t be pushed or bullied” by anybody after Elon Musk said the Reform MP “doesn’t have what it takes” to lead his party.
In an interview with Sky’s political correspondent Ali Fortescue, Mr Farage said he has spoken with the billionaire owner of X since his criticism on 5 January, when Mr Musk said: “The Reform Party needs a new leader. Farage doesn’t have what it takes.”
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Asked if the pair are still friends, Mr Farage said: “Of course we’re friends. He just says what he thinks at any moment in time.”
He added he has “been in touch” with Mr Musk, though wouldn’t divulge what they had discussed.
“Look, he said lots of supportive things. He said one thing that wasn’t supportive. I mean, that’s just the way it is,” Mr Farage said.
Musk and Farage met in December. Pic: PA
Asked if he was afraid to criticise the tech mogul, the Clacton MP said the situation was “the opposite”, and he openly disagreed with Mr Musk on his views on far-right activist Tommy Robinson.
Mr Farage said: “What he [Musk] was saying online was that effectively Tommy Robinson was a political prisoner and I wouldn’t go along with that.
“If I had gone along with that, he wouldn’t have put out a tweet that was against me.
“By the way, you know, I can’t be pushed or bullied or made to change by anybody.
“I stick to what I believe.”
Mr Musk has endorsed Robinson and claimed he was “telling the truth” about grooming gangs, writing on X: “Free Tommy Robinson”.
But Mr Farage said that Robinson, who is serving an 18-month jail term for contempt of court, isn’t welcome in Reform UK and neither are his supporters.
He said: “If people within Reform think Tommy Robinson should be a member of Reform and play a central role in Reform, that disagreement is absolutely fundamental.
“I’ve never wanted to work with people who were active in the BNP. I’ve made that clear right throughout the last decade of my on/off political career. So that’s what the point of difference is.”
Despite their disagreement, Mr Farage said he is confident Mr Musk will continue to support Reform and “may well” still give money to it.
The entrepreneur has previously spoken positively about Reform UK and there have been suggestions he could make a multi-million-pound donation in its favour.
Devolution plans ‘denial of democracy’
Mr Farage was speaking from Reform’s South East of England Conference, one of a series of regional events aimed at building up the party’s support base.
Elsewhere in the interview, he hit out at the Labour government’s devolution plans which could see some local elections scheduled for May postponed.
This would apply when councils seek permission to reorganise, so that smaller district authorities merge with other nearby ones to give them more sway over their area.
Mr Farage, who is hoping to make gains in the spring contests, claimed the plans are not about devolution but about “elections being cancelled”.
“I thought only dictators cancelled elections. This is unbelievable and devolution or a change to local government structures is being used as an excuse,” he said.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage earlier this month. Pic: PA
He claimed Tory-controlled councils are “grabbing it like it’s a life belt”, because they fear losing seats to Reform.
“It’s an absolute denial of democracy,” he added.
Mr Farage was also asked why many Reform members don’t like to speak on camera about why they support his party.
He said he did not accept there was a toxicity associated with Reform and claimed there was “institutional bias against anybody that isn’t left of centre”.
Specialist search teams, police dogs and divers have been dispatched to find two sisters who vanished in Aberdeen three days ago.
Eliza and Henrietta Huszti, both 32, were last seen on CCTV in the city’s Market Street at Victoria Bridge at about 2.12am on Tuesday.
The siblings were captured crossing the bridge and turning right onto a footpath next to the River Dee in the direction of Aberdeen Boat Club.
Henrietta Huszti. Pic: Police Scotland
Eliza Huszti. Pic: Police Scotland
Police Scotland has launched a major search and said it is carrying out “extensive inquires” in an effort to find the women.
Chief Inspector Darren Bruce said: “Local officers, led by specialist search advisors, are being assisted by resources including police dogs and our marine unit.”
Aberdeenshire Drone Services told Sky News it has offered to help in the search and is waiting to hear back from Police Scotland.
CCTV of the sisters. Pic: Police Scotland
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The sisters, from Aberdeen city centre, are described as slim with long brown hair.
Police said the Torry side of Victoria Bridge where the sisters were last seen contains many commercial and industrial units, with searches taking place in the vicinity.
The force urged businesses in and around the South Esplanade and Menzies Road area to review CCTV footage recorded in the early hours of Tuesday in case it captured anything of significance.
Drivers with relevant dashcam footage are also urged to come forward.
CI Bruce added: “We are continuing to speak to people who know Eliza and Henrietta and we urge anyone who has seen them or who has any information regarding their whereabouts to please contact 101.”
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