Britain has sentenced its youngest killers in 30 years for a knife attack

Two boys, 12 years old at the time, killed a 19-year-old man with a blade in central England last year. On Friday, they were given prison terms of at least eight years and six months.

The boys, who are now 13, are the youngest people to be found guilty of murder in Britain since two 10-year-olds killed James Bulger, a toddler, in 1993. That murder was one of the most famous in the country’s recent past.

During the attack in a park in Wolverhampton in November, Shawn Seesahai was cut in the back, legs, and head. The court heard that the wound in his back was 23 cm (9 inches) deep and went through his heart and lungs.

Judge Amanda Tipples said, “The facts of this case are evil and shocking.”

“The nature of these injuries makes me sure that the defendants meant to kill Shawn, and they worked together to do it, but I can’t be sure which one gave him the fatal stab wound.” The attack happened out of the blue and wasn’t planned ahead of time.

Seesahai was from the Caribbean island of Anguilla. He had been in Britain for about six months to study and have eye surgery. His mother told me that he was “kind and generous.”

His dad said the murder “left a huge hole in the pit of our stomach which nothing can fill, we are devastated as a family, totally heartbroken and confused” .

Because of the law, neither of the boys can be named, but one of them got the machete from a friend for 40 pounds ($54) and kept it under his bed. He changed out of his uniform when he got home from school on the day of the attack and took the knife with him to meet up with the other boy.

The boys ran away after being attacked for asking Seesahai to move from a bench. One person used bleach to clean the blade and then put it back under his bed. They were tried for 20 days and found guilty of murder in June.

Crown Prosecution Service officer Jonathan Roe said the strike made no sense.

“The defendants at the age of 12 should have been enjoying their childhood rather than arming themselves with a machete and killing an innocent person,” he added.

$1 is equal to 0.7468 pounds.