Shawn Seesahai: Young killers face longer sentences

The UK's youngest knife murderers could see their sentences for killing Shawn Seesahai increased during a hearing at the Court of Appeal.

The boys were both aged 12 when they used a machete to attack Mr Seesahai, 19, on playing fields in Wolverhampton on 13 November, 2023.

The killers were convicted of murder in September and ordered to serve life sentences with minimum terms of eight-and-a-half years.

The Attorney General's Office (AGO) said in November those custodial terms would be referred to the Court of Appeal under the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme.

This allows relatives, victims and members of the public who believe sentences are unreasonably low to ask for cases relating to a number of specific serious offences to be reviewed with a view to them being sent to the appeal court.

Judges are due to consider the appeal case on Thursday at the Royal Courts of Justice in London.

Mr Seesahai was stabbed through the heart and lungs and suffered a skull fracture on Stowlawn playing fields, with one of the wounds he suffered almost passing through his body.

His killers blamed each other for inflicting four wounds with the machete.

One of them had admitted possession of the knife prior to the trial, while the other was found guilty of the same charge when they were both unanimously convicted of murder following their trial at Nottingham Crown Court.

At their sentencing, the judge described them as "the youngest knife murderers" in the UK.

They are believed to be the youngest defendants convicted of murder since Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, both 11, were found guilty in 1993 of killing two-year-old James Bulger.

High Court judge Mrs Justice Tipples had previously ruled the defendants should be protected by anonymity orders, saying their welfare outweighed the wider public interest in open justice and unrestricted reporting.

In a victim impact statement read to the sentencing hearing, the family of Anguilla-born Mr Seesahai, who was living in Birmingham, said they were haunted by thoughts of how scared he must have been when he was killed.

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