Two 13-year-old boys believed to be Britain’s youngest knife murderers have had their jail sentences for murdering a 19-year-old man increased at the Court of Appeal.
The two boys, who cannot be identified, were given life sentences with minimum terms of eight-and-a-half years for the murder of 19-year-old Shawn Seesahai in Wolverhampton on November 13 last year.
They will now spend at least 10 years behind bars in total.
The defendants, were both 12 years old at the time of the murder and were described during their sentencing in September as the country’s “youngest knife murderers”.
The boys became the youngest defendants convicted of the crime in the UK since Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, both aged 11, were found guilty in 1993 of murdering two-year-old James Bulger.
On Thursday, lawyers for the Solicitor General said the sentences of both boys were “unduly lenient” and should be increased, stating it was a “particularly serious type of case”.
Three senior judges ruled that the minimum terms should be increased to 10 years, meaning the youths will spend nine years and 60 days behind bars because of time already served.
Lord Justice William Davis, sitting with Mr Justice Bennathan and Judge Nicholas Dean KC, said: “We have, with some reluctance and sadness, come to the conclusion that the minimum terms imposed by Mrs Justice Tipples were unduly lenient.”
The judge said that full written reasons for their decision would come at a later date.
Mr Seesahai was stabbed through the heart and lungs and suffered a skull fracture during the attack on Stowlawn playing fields in East Park, with one of the wounds he suffered measuring 23cm deep – almost passing through his body.
Both boys pleaded not guilty to murder, blaming the other for inflicting four wounds with a machete.
One of the youths admitted to possession of the knife before their trial at Nottingham Crown Court and the other was found guilty of the same charge when they were both unanimously convicted of murder in June.
High Court judge Mrs Justice Tipples had ruled the defendants should be protected by anonymity orders, saying their welfare outweighed the wider public interest in open justice and unrestricted reporting.
Sentencing the pair, she said the murder was “horrific and shocking” and that Mr Seesahai had “everything to live for”.
In a victim impact statement read to the sentencing hearing, the family of Anguilla-born Mr Seesahai, who was living in Birmingham, described his murder as tragic, unexpected and senseless, and having been committed “for no reason at all”.
