Two boys believed to be the UK’s youngest knife murderers have both been detained for a minimum term of eight years and six months.
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.
The judge began her sentencing by acknowledging the jail terms being handed down would be no comfort to the victim’s family.
She told the boys: “When you killed Shawn he was 19, starting out in his adult life with everything to live for.
“His parents have lost their son. His sister has lost her brother.
“What you did is horrific and shocking. You did not know Shawn, he was a stranger to you. You both killed Shawn in an attack that lasted less than a minute when he asked you to move (from a bench).
“I am sure you intended to kill him.”
Image: Shawn Seesahai. Pic: West Midlands Police
The judge added that she could not be sure which of the boys had inflicted a 23cm-deep wound which almost passed all the way through Mr Seesahai’s body.
The teenager 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.
Image: A machete was found under the bed of one of the boys. Pic: West Midlands Police
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”.
Image: Police provided an image of one of the convicted boys wearing a machete across his chest. Pic: West Midlands Police/PA
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.”
Image: Mr Seesahai was ‘utterly defenceless’ when he was attacked, the trial heard. Pic: West Midlands Police/PA
‘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”.
Image: Mr Seesahai’s family scattered his ashes on his favourite beach
“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.”
Image: A forensic blue tent where Shawn Seesahai was killed in November last year. Pic: Stephanie Wareham/PA
West Midlands Police Chief Superintendent Kim Madill said outside court after sentencing: “Shawn was only 19 when his life was taken at the hands of two boys, then aged just 12, who had armed themselves with a machete.
“That reality has had a huge impact on us all, it is both shocking and saddening. The impact of knife crime is devastating no matter where you live in the country, this is an issue that affects us all.
“Much work has been done and we have had successes in some areas, however, this is clearly not enough.
“We are listening to families affected by knife crime and acting on their feedback to see what more we can do with partners to stop the devastation caused by knife crime.”
A 12-year-old girl who died after an incident of self-harm was failed on multiple levels, an inquest jury has found.
Warning: This story contains references to self-harm and suicide
Mia Lucas, who died in January 2024, was found unresponsive at an NHS children’s psychiatric unit after developing a rare neurological disorder that had been left undiagnosed.
The jury at Sheffield Coroner’s Court heard the girl was found at the Becton Centre, part of Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust.
She had been placed there after being sectioned while suffering an “acute psychotic episode” during an assessment at the Queen’s Medical Centre (QMC) in Nottingham.
On Thursday, the jury found that the failure to undertake a lumbar puncture at QMC before her transfer to the Becton Centre “possibly contributed to Mia’s death”.
A lumbar puncture involves a needle being inserted into your lower back to find out if symptoms are caused by a brain or spine condition.
Image: Mia Lucas.
Pic: Family handout/PA
The jury also said there was a failure at the Becton Centre to respond adequately to Mia’s risk of self-harm.
Professor Marta Cohen told the jury Mia’s cause of death was “compression of the neck” but she had now added that this was caused by “acute psychosis”, which was caused by “autoimmune encephalitis”, an inflammation of the brain that can cause extreme psychiatric symptoms and is treatable.
The autoimmune encephalitis diagnosis emerged during the nine-day inquest after a pathologist revealed she had received new post-mortem results.
The revelation prompted shock in the courtroom and tears from Mia’s family members in the public gallery.
The condition was described as “complex and rare”, according to consultant paediatric neurologist Mike Taylor.
He added that there was a low level of suspicion Mia had it, while being assessed at QMC, and told the court that experts had to consider the very severe treatment side effects, which included death.
Mia’s mother, Chloe Hayes, told Sky News she was unhappy at how the Becton Centre had supervised her daughter.
Image: Mia Lucas (right), with her mother Chloe. Pic: Family handout/PA
“All they had to do was watch her. I actually never got told the truth about the attempts that Mia made [to self-harm] until after she died,” she said.
“If I’d have known the truth I wouldn’t have left Mia there. And I think she had so much to live for. I don’t think she knew what she was doing.”
In a statement, Mrs Hayes added that she wanted people to know her daughter’s extreme behaviour was only evident in the final few weeks of her life.
“For the other 12 years, she was a beautiful soul who loved life and loved her family, and that’s how we want her to be remembered,” she said, describing Mia as a “happy, fun, friendly girl who had so much to live for.”
NHS Trusts apologise for Mia’s death
In a statement, Dr Manjeet Shehmar, medical director at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, offered “heartfelt condolences to Mia’s family for the loss of their daughter”.
She continued: “We accept the coroner’s outcome in court today and apologise to Mia’s family for not identifying autoimmune encephalitis while she was in our care. While this is an incredibly rare condition and initial tests were negative, we recognise that further testing may have had an impact on her future, for which we are truly sorry.”
Dr Shehmar said that in future cases of suspected possible autoimmune encephalitis, a lumbar puncture will be performed.
The trust will also “strengthen training and guidance for staff internally and review current published evidence of acute psychotic episodes in children and young people”.
Dr Jeff Perring, executive medical director at Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Our thoughts are with Mia’s family and everyone who is grieving her loss in such tragic circumstances.
“We are deeply sorry for Mia’s death and recognise the profound impact this has had on those who loved her.”
The trust has carried out a thorough review of Mia’s care and made “significant changes” at the Becton Centre, he added.
“We will continue to work with children, young people, their families and carers to listen to, learn and take action from their experiences.
“The inquest has been important to understand fully the circumstances surrounding Mia’s death. We will now carefully reflect on the evidence heard and the coroner’s conclusions to ensure we continue to provide safe and compassionate care.”
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. Alternatively, you can call Mind’s support line on 0300 102 1234, or NHS on 111.
Day two after a budget is always an important moment.
This is when the nerds and boffins of Britain’s fiscal thinktanks assemble to deliver their snap verdict on the chancellor’s decisions.
The moment is more important than ever when, as was certainly the case this time, the budget is a big one.
So what did the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) and the Resolution Foundation make of this year’s budget?
Well, as you’d probably expect, they both fell short of distilling it into a single soundbite, but in broad terms, they both sounded somewhat positive.
Yes, there were plenty of big provisos. The head of the IFS, Helen Miller, said Labour have broken their manifesto pledge not to raise National Insurance.
More on Budget 2025
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The Resolution Foundation argued that if only the chancellor had raised the basic rate of income tax instead of freezing personal allowances, it would have made the tax rise considerably fairer and more progressive.
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10:22
Treasury minister vs Ed Conway
And that’s before one gets into the criticism of some of the other bits and pieces from the red book – the structure of the EV tax, for instance (why doesn’t it try to penalise congestion?), or of the mansion tax (why not just overhaul council tax altogether?).
But for the most part, these closely-followed institutions seemed pretty supportive of this year’s budget – more so, certainly, than they were last year.
Primarily, that’s because while the last budget left only a very thin bit of headroom against Rachel Reeves’s fiscal rules, this one was far more cautious, doubling that fiscal insurance policy to just over £21bn.
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5:15
Beth Rigby challenges Sir Keir Starmer over the budget
Yet that headroom is dependent on a couple of important factors. First, that the government will hold to its promises to keep spending growth constrained towards the end of the decade. Second, that it will be able to raise all the tax revenues it’s promising in that year.
That, in turn, gets to a deeper issue with the budget. Most of the tough stuff has been put off to the final year of the forecast – namely 2029.
That year, the government will face a squeeze at the very same moment that Britons are all asked to pay more in taxes.
And, critically, that’s the very year Labour is due to face a general election. Does it really plan to fight an election off the back of a contracting economy?
Consider, too, that for all the government’s promises to get living standards growing this parliament, they are currently only forecast to rise at the slowest rate since the 1950s – save for the pandemic and energy price shock period. The economic backdrop, in other words, is hardly rosy.
Still, for the time being, the chancellor has managed to put together a budget that has bolstered her position both in her party and in her job.
Markets remain relatively sanguine – much more so than after Rachel Reeves’s first budget last year – with bond yields lower today than before the event (albeit a little higher than yesterday).
However, this was a complex budget. And, as with all bits of complex engineering, there remains a distinct possibility of large chunks of the budget failing to work.
But since so much of it isn’t due to kick in for a few years, it may take quite a while before we find out which bits work and which, if any, don’t.
A man has been arrested at an airport as part of the investigation into the terrorist attack at a Manchester synagogue.
The 31-year-old was detained at Manchester Airport on suspicion of the commission, preparation and instigation of acts of terrorism after arriving on an inbound flight, police said.
It brings the total number of people arrested in connection with the incident at Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue to seven.
Jihad al Shamie launched the attack at the synagogue in Crumpsall on 2 October, driving his car at worshippers gathering on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur, before attacking others with a knife and trying to storm inside.
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1:43
Manchester synagogue terrorist: what we know now
Armed police shot al Shamie after he ran towards officers “aggressively” while carrying a knife and what police feared was an explosive device – later identified as a fake.
Image: Adrian Daulby, left, and Melvin Cravitz. Pics: Family handout/Greater Manchester Police
He died from a single gunshot wound to the chest fired by an armed police officer, while father-of-three Mr Cravitz died from multiple knife wounds inflicted by al Shamie, an inquest at Manchester Coroner’s Court heard in October.
The inquests into the deaths of both men have been adjourned until February next year.
Three other men were treated in hospital for serious injuries. Two have since been released, police said on Thursday.
Image: The deadly attack rocked the local community. Pic: PA
An inquest into the death of al Shamie, a Syrian-born UK citizen, heard he was identified by his fingerprints and evidence, including his car, phone and inquiries with his immediate family in the aftermath of the attack.
At the hearing in October, Judge Alexia Durran, the chief coroner of England and Wales, said her provisional findings were that al Shamie died of gunshot wounds.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct found no misconduct in the police response.
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In a statement on Thursday, Assistant Chief Constable Rob Potts, from Counter Terrorism Policing North West, said: “The loved ones of Mr Daulby and Mr Cravitz have been updated on this development, as have those who were seriously injured in the attack.
“Our investigation is continuing, and I would once again appeal for anyone with information that they think could assist our enquiries to please come forward.”
Police also said a 30-year-old man arrested on 9 October on suspicion of failing to disclose information contrary to S38B of the Terrorism Act 2000 remains on bail.