When 19-year-old Shawn Seesahai was beaten and hacked to death in a savage machete attack in a Wolverhampton park, detectives were shocked to discover his killers were just 12 years old.

Days earlier, in another part of the country, Alfie Lewis, 15, was stabbed to death by a 14-year-old boy outside a primary school in Leeds.

Later the same month, a girl and boy went on trial in Manchester for what was described as the “sadistic” knife murder of 16-year-old Brianna Ghey when they were both aged 15.

Murders carried out by children have always horrified us as a society – but are they getting more common or are killers getting younger?

A Sky News analysis of the available Office for National Statistics data on the number of suspects aged under 16 who have been convicted of homicide – murder, manslaughter and infanticide – shows a relatively flat trendline from 2006/7 to 2022/3.

The percentage of homicide convictions going to under-16s compared with other ages doubled over 10 years, however, from about 1 in 50 in 2012/13 to 1 in 25 in 2022/23.

The 2022/23 figure is the highest since at least 2008/09, but as the percentage of under-16s is low overall the averages can be heavily skewed by relatively few convictions.

‘Much more serious and extreme’

Dr Simon Harding, a criminology expert, thinks there’s been “an increase in serious violence in young people” and that there is a greater “acceptance of extreme levels of violence between” children.

“Even something that might have been settled with fisticuffs or anti-social behaviour can suddenly dramatically turn into something much more serious and extreme,” he says.

“What 10 years ago might have been a punch in the face, five years ago might have been a stab to the arm or leg is now a stab to the neck or heart, which can lead to death.”

Bardia Shojaeifard was found guilty of murder after a jury heard how he attacked Alfie on his way home on 7 November last year “in revenge” for an altercation a week earlier.

He had posed for pictures with knives and took a 13cm-long kitchen knife he used to kill Alfie from his home with him to school in the Horsforth area of Leeds.

Sentencing him to life detention with a minimum term of 13 years in June, a judge described Shojaeifard as “outwardly normal” but with a “worrying interest in knives”.

Shawn, who had been walking through Stowlawn playing fields in Wolverhampton with a friend on 13 November last year, was struck on his back, legs and skull, while the fatal wound was more than 20cm deep and punctured his heart.

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The boys responsible, the UK’s youngest knife murderers – who were detained for at least eight-and-a-half years – are believed to be the youngest children to be found guilty of murder since Robert Thompson and Jon Venables.

Thompson and Venables were aged just 10 when they abducted, tortured and murdered two-year-old James Bulger in 1993 and 11 when they were found guilty of murder.

A quarter of a century earlier, 11-year-old Mary Bell was sentenced to life detention in 1968 after being found guilty of manslaughter for fatally strangling two boys, aged four and three.

She was also aged just 10 at the time she killed her first victim.

But Sharon Carr is believed to be the youngest girl in the country to have committed murder.

Carr was 12 when she fatally stabbed and mutilated stranger Katie Rackliff, 18, after she left a nightclub in Camberley, Surrey, in 1992, but she wasn’t convicted for another five years.

In another crime that shocked the nation, Ricky Preddie was 13 and his brother Danny was 12 when they killed 10-year-old schoolboy Damilola Taylor in 2000, although they weren’t jailed for his manslaughter until 2006.

Is there now a greater ‘willingness to inflict pain’?

So there have always been cases of children who commit murder and other shocking crimes, but Dr Harding says: “We just tend to forget.”

However, from his experience preparing expert reports on court cases involving gang crime, exploitation and modern slavery, he says he has noticed a greater “willingness to inflict pain and suffering”.

Earlier this year, Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe were jailed for life with minimum terms of 22 years and 20 years respectively after they were found guilty of murdering Brianna when they were both aged just 15.

Jenkinson lured the vulnerable teenager, who was transgender, to Linear Park in the village of Culcheth, near Warrington, where she was stabbed 28 times in the head, neck, chest and back with a hunting knife on 11 February last year.

The pair had a fascination with violence and torture, prepared a “kill list” and meticulously planned Brianna’s “frenzied and ferocious” murder for weeks, their trial heard.

Jurors were told it was “difficult to fathom” how they could share such “dark thoughts” and carry out such a “disturbing” crime.

Beyond the high-profile cases that attract significant media attention, much of the country’s gang violence, including children killing other children, is largely hidden from the public, says Dr Harding.

He’s seeing “quite extreme things that wouldn’t happen a few years ago”, such as disabled people subjected to levels of cruelty bordering on torture, and young women raped and waterboarded by the people forcing them to sell drugs.

A different Dr Harding, forensic psychiatrist Dr Duncan Harding, works with adults and children who commit serious crimes. He says we really don’t know if killers are getting younger or youth violent crime is increasing because the evidence just isn’t there.

But the reporting of crime and the expansion of social media use means cases which may not have passed the threshold for widespread coverage in the past gain more traction, adding to a perception that it is.

‘Dehumanisation is spreading’

Even if youth violence isn’t on the rise, the “horrifying” crimes we see reported aren’t acceptable and we have to, as a society, try to understand what’s going on and try to improve things, Dr Duncan Harding adds.

The psychiatrist, who has provided expert evidence in court cases involving homicide, serious violence and terrorism, and has recently released his memoir The Criminal Mind, says the “dehumanisation” seen in gang violence seems to be spreading beyond gangs.

Our divided society is suffering an existential crisis since the COVID-19 pandemic, which is exacerbated by social media, he says, and he also highlights cuts to services for young people due to austerity as a potential factor.

But “stripping away youth clubs isn’t going to in itself lead to someone who’s going to stab or kill someone”, he says, and children don’t always commit violent crimes because of mental illness or difficulties in their lives.

“Obviously, they’re not normal, well-adjusted people, but in my experience, it’s not as straightforward as that either,” he says. “I don’t think that all offenders are victims.”

‘You have to have proper sentencing for knife crime’

The potential solutions are just as complicated – the psychiatrist suggests a public health approach that recognises the “epidemic” of knife crime among vulnerable young children, with schools, health workers and police working together to spot the early warning signs.

But he also supports the wider use of stop-and-search and the government ban on so-called zombie-style knives to try to keep weapons out of children’s hands, and says there need to be consequences at the point where youngsters are carrying knives.

Shawn’s parents urge children to “think about what they’re doing” and not to carry a weapon, but want to see tougher sentences for youngsters like the boys who killed their son.

“You have to have a proper sentencing for knife crime,” says his father Suresh Seesahai.

“Murder is murder. Murder is no coming back. If you murder someone they can’t come back… Life sentence is the best for you.”

Emma Mills-Sheffield knows all too well the grief that suicide brings. Her sister Lou took her own life. And so too did their maternal grandmother. Emma’s father tried too.

“The cycle of grief was immense and deep,” she explains as we sit and talk in her Hove home.

“It’s not straightforward when someone takes their own life; the anger, the disbelief, the constant searching. There must have been evidence. There must have been something we could have done. There must have been a note. There must have been something.

“And then the anger around, weirdly, other people. People don’t know what to say or do.”

After years of decline, suicide rates are rising – especially among women.

In 2023 in England and Wales, they reached levels not seen since 1999. Some 6,069 suicides were registered in the two nations in 2023, up from 5,642 in 2022.

Suicide data is complex and can be quite hard to interpret.

The official figures have been disputed, with some experts saying they have been oversimplified. This is partly because suicides can take a while to be registered and show up in the official data.

But what can’t be disputed is that far too many people are taking their own lives.

This is a public health crisis that needs urgent intervention, according to suicide prevention charities, which are seeing a surge in the number of women seeking help.

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‘Women are experiencing high levels of depression and anxiety’

Rachael Swann, CEO of Grassroots Suicide Prevention, a charity that helps people in crisis, says 70% of users of their Stay Alive mobile app, which connects people to support, are now women.

The rise in women taking their own lives is attributed to many factors, including menopause and perinatal depression, she says.

“As a midlife mum myself, I could really see the pressures,” she says.

“Women are really experiencing high levels of depression and anxiety, and there’s been a high level of domestic abuse following the pandemic.

“And then we’ve got that middle age group of 45 to 64-year-olds, who are the sandwich generation. So they might be juggling caring responsibilities, working and childcare. I’m in that space and there really is very little time and space for self-care.”

More attempts ‘than I have been able to count’, survivor says

Olivia-Louise Hamilton has been trying to take her own life since she was 12 years old.

She had a difficult childhood and battled for years with her poor mental health. She is 29 now and the dark winter months are challenging.

“There are more times than I have been able to count,” she explains about her attempts to take her own life.

“And they were quite different in the lead-up to it. Some of them were very, very impulsive, maybe in response to a certain trigger or because I’ve been sort of misusing alcohol, whereas others were a lot more premeditated, there was a lot more planning and that longer-term thought that went into them.”

‘I’m always going to be vulnerable’

Ms Hamilton is in a much better place now, but that does not mean her struggle is over. It is always there.

“I think I’d be lying if I said it isn’t something that’s on my mind. I think that I’m always going to be vulnerable to those sorts of thoughts just because of my history,” she says.

“But equally, the skills and the tools that I’ve learned over the years, I think really help me move forward with the hope that things might be different.

“I always think I’m hopeful. I’m hopeful enough that I won’t have a crisis. But I guess I’m not stupid enough to think that that won’t ever happen.”

Labour has promised to tackle suicide

The Labour government has promised to tackle suicide with the recruitment of over 8,000 new mental health staff specially trained to support people at risk of suicide.

In its 2024 manifesto, it said it would “deliver a renewed drive to tackle the biggest killers”, including suicide.

Ms Hamilton can tell when things are getting too much and how to reach for help. But tragically, it’s not the same for thousands of other women.

Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK.

Boris Johnson claims he considered authorising a raid on a warehouse in the Netherlands during the pandemic to retrieve COVID-19 vaccines.

In his upcoming memoir, he described meeting senior military officials in March 2021 to discuss the plans, which he admitted were “nuts”.

Another extract from his upcoming book, released by the Daily Mail, describes Mr Johnson trying to convince the Duke of Sussex not to move to the United States.

He said Downing Street and Buckingham Palace asked him to speak to Prince Harry in January 2020, hours after announcing he and his wife Meghan planned to step away from royal life.

According to Mr Johnson, who was prime minister at the time, there was “a ridiculous business… when they made me try to persuade Harry to stay. Kind of manly pep talk. Totally hopeless”, the Daily Mail reported.

The men met for 20 minutes on the sidelines of a UK-Africa investment summit in London’s Docklands.

Meanwhile, the latest extract describes Mr Johnson writing about a point during the pandemic when AstraZeneca was “trying, in vain” to export the vaccine to the UK from Holland.

At the time, the AstraZeneca jabs were at the heart of a cross-Channel row over exports.

He wrote he “had commissioned some work on whether it might be technically feasible to launch an aquatic raid on a warehouse in Leiden, in the Netherlands, and to take that which was legally ours and which the UK desperately needed”.

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He believed the EU was treating the UK “with malice and with spite” due to the European rollout being slower than in the UK.

The extract says military chiefs told Mr Johnson the plan was “certainly feasible”, using rigid inflatable boats to navigate Dutch canals.

But the senior officer said the UK would “have to explain why we are effectively invading a long-standing Nato ally”.

“They wanted to stop us getting the five million doses, and yet they showed no real sign of wanting to use the AstraZeneca doses themselves,” Mr Johnson wrote.