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.”
UK
Resident doctor strikes: I don’t want people to suffer but we have to walk out again, says BMA chief
The British Medical Association (BMA) has defended a new round of resident doctor walkouts starting on Friday, insisting medics’ pay is still “way down” compared with 2008 and that the government has failed to finish “a journey” towards restoring it.
BMA chair Dr Tom Dolphin told Sky News the dispute remains rooted in years of pay erosion that have left resident doctors far behind other public sector workers.
“When we started the dispute, […] the lowest level of the resident doctors were being paid £14 an hour,” he said.
“There were some pay rises over the last couple of years that brought that partly back to the value it should be at, but not all the way.
“The secretary of state (Wes Streeting) himself called it a journey, implying there were further steps to come, but we haven’t seen that.”
Resident doctors outside Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary during a five-day strike in July. File pic: PA
When asked if the row ultimately “comes down to money”, he replied: “In the sense that the secretary of state doesn’t want to or isn’t able to fund the pay increases to match the value that we had in 2008.”
Dr Dolphin argued that while “the general worker in the economy as a whole” has seen pay catch up since the 2008 financial crash, “doctors are still way down”.
The government points out that its 29% settlement last year was one of the largest in the public sector and was intended to draw a line under two years of walkouts.
But Dr Dolphin said the deal still fell short: “The gap was biggest for doctors and needed the biggest amount of restoration, and that’s what we got.”
He defended the BMA’s use of the Retail Price Index (RPI), a metric rejected by the Office for National Statistics, saying it “better reflects the costs people face”.
Should resident doctors get a pay rise? Have your say in the poll at the bottom of this story.
Dr Tom Dolphin says resident doctors are still underpaid
‘Who do you think is treating the patients?’
With Chancellor Rachel Reeves preparing her budget amid warnings of deep cuts, Dr Dolphin said the BMA is not demanding an immediate cash injection.
“We’re quite happy for that money to be deferred with some kind of multi-year pay deal so that we can end the dispute and avoid having further industrial action about pay for several years to come,” he said.
“Money spent in the NHS is returned to the economy. For every pound you spend, you get several pounds back.”
When pressed on whether the £1.7bn cost of previous strike action could have been better spent on treatment and technology for NHS cancer patients, he hit back: “Who do you think is treating the cancer patients? It’s the doctors.”
Read more on Sky News:
Thousands of NHS redundancies
Sentence and fine over patient death
Health Secretary Wes Streeting has criticised the BMA for striking again. File pic: PA
Strikes will cause disruption, union boss admits
Dr Dolphin rejected suggestions that the dispute could destabilise the government, calling the idea “implausible”.
He admitted prolonged strikes have tested public patience, but said the government had left doctors with no choice.
“A prolonged industrial dispute makes people annoyed with both sides,” he said. “It is vexing to us that we are still in this dispute.”
“I don’t want patients to suffer,” he added. “I accept that the strikes cause disruption… of course that’s upsetting for them. I completely get that. And I’m sorry that it’s happening.”
Sir Keir Starmer has apologised to his health secretary after allies of the prime minister accused him of plotting a coup.
Sky News understands Sir Keir spoke briefly to Wes Streeting on Wednesday evening, though did not share details about the briefing campaign.
Politics Hub: Follow latest updates
Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions earlier in the day, he denied authorising the attacks on Mr Streeting, who was accused of planning a leadership challenge after the budget later this month.
Mr Streeting said the allegations are “not true”, telling Sky News’ Mornings With Ridge And Frost that whoever was behind the briefings had been “watching too much Celebrity Traitors”.
He insisted he was loyal to the prime minister, who has been under mounting pressure as he and the Labour Party flounder behind Reform in the polls.
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Health secretary insists he’s ‘a faithful’
Downing Street went on the attack on Tuesday night to ward off any potential challenge to Sir Keir after the budget, which could see the government announce manifesto-breaking tax rises.
Sir Keir and Rachel Reeves have refused to rule out raising income tax, national insurance, or VAT.
One senior figure told Sky News political editor Beth Rigby while a post-budget challenge is unlikely, it could come if next May’s elections – including in London and Wales – go badly for Labour.
Labour face a challenge from Reform on the right and parties like the Greens and Plaid Cymru on the left.
Read more: How No 10 plunged itself into crisis
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Starmer backs Streeting at PMQs
Also under pressure is the prime minister’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, after Mr Streeting hit out at a “toxic culture” inside Number 10.
Sir Keir failed to say he had “full confidence” in him at PMQs in response to questions from Kemi Badenoch, but the prime minister’s political spokesperson later insisted to journalists that he does retain his backing.
Sky News understands Mr McSweeney was not discussed when Sir Keir and Mr Streeting spoke last night.
Labour chairwoman Anna Turley said the prime minister will investigate the source of the claims against the health secretary, telling ITV: “This is not what he wants to see and he’s determined to drive it out.”
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