The children who kill: Are they getting younger?
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.
Percentage of under-16s convicted of homicide
‘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.
Shojaeifard posed with knives. Pic: West Yorkshire Police
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.
Read more:
Children and teenagers convicted of knife killings
Grieving sister shocked by age of killers
One of Shawn’s killers poses with a machete
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.
James Bulger seen on CCTV being led away before his 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.
Bell was 10 when she strangled her first victim. Pic: PA
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.
Damilola Taylor. Pic: PA
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.
Brianna Ghey’s killers – Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe
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.
Number of under-16s convicted of homicide
Percentage of under-16s convicted of homicide
‘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.”
Shawn Seesahai was killed in a machete attack. Pic: West Midlands Police
‘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.”
A young woman who claimed to be Madeleine McCann has been convicted of harassing the missing toddler’s family.
However, Julia Wandelt, 24, was cleared of stalking the couple.
A Polish national born three years after Madeleine, Wandelt said she suspected she had been abducted and brought up by a couple who were not her real parents.
She was having mental health issues at the time and had been abused by an elderly relative.
The relative looked like an artist’s drawing of a man who was once a suspect in the Madeleine case, which she stumbled across during internet research on missing children.
She went to Los Angeles and told a US TV chat show audience: “I believe I am Madeleine McCann.”
Madeleine was nearly four when she vanished from the family’s rented holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in May 2007.
She had been left sleeping with her younger twin siblings, Sean and Amelia, while her parents dined nearby with friends, making intermittent checks on the children.
Madeleine is the world’s most famous missing child, the subject of three international police investigations that have failed to find any trace of her.
Wandelt claimed to have a blemish in the iris of her right eye, like Madeleine’s, and to resemble aged-progressed images of her.
Madeleine McCann went missing during a family holiday to Portugal in 2007. Pic: PA
Over three years, she attracted half a million followers on her Instagram account, iammadeleinemccan, and posted her claims on TikTok.
Police told her she was not Madeleine and ordered her not to approach her family, but she ignored the warning.
The McCanns and their children gave evidence in the trial at Leicester Crown Court, describing the upset Wandelt had caused them.
Her co-defendant, Karen Spragg, 61, from Cardiff, was found not guilty of stalking and harassment.
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Public safety is “at risk” because more inmates are being sent to prisons with minimal security, a serving governor has warned – as details emerge of another manhunt for a foreign national offender.
Mark Drury – speaking in his role as representative for open prison governors at the Prison Governors’ Association – told Sky News open prisons that have had no absconders for “many years” are now “suddenly” experiencing a rise in cases.
It comes after a man who was serving a 21-year sentence for kidnap and grievous bodily harm absconded from an open prison in Sussex last month.
Sky News has learned that Ola Abimbola is a foreign national offender who still hasn’t returned to HMP Ford – and Sussex Police says it is working with partners to find him.
WARNING: Some readers may find the content in this article distressing
Ola Abimbola absconded from an open prison. Pic: Sussex Police
For Natalie Queiroz, who was stabbed 24 times by her ex-partner while she was eight months’ pregnant with their child, the warnings could not feel starker.
Natalie sustained injuries to all her major organs and her arms, while the knife only missed her unborn baby by 2mm.
“Nobody expected either of us to survive,” she told Sky News.
Babur Raja was sentenced to 18 years for attempted murder, but Natalie has recently been told that he’s set to be moved to an open prison four years earlier than planned.
“Any day now, my ex who created this untold horror is about to go to an open prison,” Natalie said.
Open prisons – otherwise known as Category D jails – have minimal security and are traditionally used to house prisoners right at the end of their sentence, to prepare them for integrating back into society.
With overcrowding in higher security jails, policy changes mean more prisoners are eligible for a transfer to open conditions earlier on in their sentence.
Natalie Queiroz was stabbed 24 times by her ex-partner
“It doesn’t feel right, it’s terrifying, and it also doesn’t feel like justice,” Natalie said, wiping away tears at points.
Previously, rules stated a transfer to open prison could only take place within three years of their eligibility for parole – but no earlier than five years before their automatic release date.
The five-year component was dropped in March last year under the previous government, but the parole eligibility element was extended to five years in April 2025.
Raja, who is due for release in 2034, has parole eligibility 12 years into his sentence, which is 2028.
Under the rule change, this eligibility for open prison is set for this year – but under the new rules it could have been 2023, which is within five years of his parole date.
Another change, introduced in the spring, means certain offenders can be assumed suitable for open prisons three years early – extended from two years.
Natalie says her ex-partner Babur Raja caused ‘untold horror’
Natalie has been campaigning to prevent violent offenders and domestic abuse perpetrators from being eligible to transfer to an open prison early.
She’s had meetings with ministers and raised both her case and others.
“They actually said – he is dangerous,” she told Sky News.
“I said to [the minister]: ‘How can you make a risk assessment for someone like that?’
“And they went: ‘If we’re honest, we can’t’.”
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What’s wrong with our prisons?
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The government told Sky News that Raja’s crimes were “horrific” and that their “thoughts remain with the victim”.
They also insist that the “small number of offenders eligible for moves to open prison face a strict, thorough risk assessment” – while anyone breaking the rules “can be immediately returned”.
Mark Drury, a representative of the Prison Governors’ Association
But Mr Drury describes risk assessments as an “algorithm tick box” because of “the pressure on offender management units”.
These warnings come at an already embarrassing time for the Prison Service after migrant sex offender Hadush Kebatu was mistakenly freed last month.
This week, it emerged two others have been freed in error since then, amid new release checks.
In response to this report, the Ministry of Justice says it “inherited a justice system in crisis, with prisons days away from collapse” – forcing “firm action to get the situation back under control”.
The government has promised to add 14,000 new prison places by 2031 and introduce sentencing reforms.
The US Congress has written to Andrew Mountbatten Windsor requesting an interview with him in connection with his “long-standing friendship” with paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform said it is investigating the late financier’s “sex trafficking operations”.
It told Andrew: “The committee is seeking to uncover the identities of Mr Epstein’s co-conspirators and enablers, and to understand the full extent of his criminal operations.
“Well-documented allegations against you, along with your long-standing friendship with Mr Epstein, indicate that you may possess knowledge of his activities relevant to our investigation.
“In the interest of justice for the victims of Jeffrey Epstein, we request that you co-operate with the committee’s investigation by sitting for a transcribed interview with the committee.”
The congressional committee wants to understand any ‘activities’ relevant to its Epstein investigation. PA file pic
Virginia Giuffre, who died in April, accused Andrew of sexually assaulting her after being introduced by Epstein. Andrew has always vehemently denied her accusations.
The letter to the former prince, is addressed to Royal Lodge, Windsor Great Park, the home he agreed last week to leave, when he was stripped of his royal titles.
It outlines his “close relationship” with Epstein and references a recently revealed 2011 email exchange in which Andrew told him “we are in this together”.
And it says the committee has identified “financial records containing notations such as ‘massage for Andrew’ that raise serious questions”.
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The committee said Andrew’s links to Epstein “further confirms our suspicion that you may have valuable information about the crimes committed by Mr Epstein and his co-conspirators”.
The letter, signed by 16 members of Congress, requested Andrew responds by 20 November.
It came as the King officially stripped his disgraced brother of both his HRH style and his prince title.
The move followed the publication Ms Giuffre’s posthumous memoirs, and the US government’s release of documents from the paedophile’s estate.
Ms Giuffre alleged she was forced to have sex with Andrew three times – once at convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell’s home in London, once in Epstein’s address in Manhattan, and once on the disgraced financier’s private island, Little St James.
The incident at Maxwell’s home allegedly occurred when Ms Giuffre was 17 years old.
Epstein took his own life in a New York prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking and conspiracy charges.
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