Grandmother speaks out:
The grandmother of one of Britain’s youngest killers says people should not “feel sorry” for their family.
The woman, who is the paternal grandmother of one of the two 12-year-olds found guilty of the murder of teenager Shawn Seesahai with a machete, said: “Don’t feel sorry for us.”
Speaking to The Telegraph, she suggested that the family would cope “with whatever comes our way” ahead of the sentencing of her grandson next month.
He, along with his friend, are believed to be the youngest defendants convicted of murder in Britain since Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, both aged 11, were found guilty in 1993 of killing two-year-old James Bulger. They are also thought to be the UK’s youngest knife murderers ever.
After refusing to answer police questions in the aftermath of the murder, the boys both gave evidence to jurors, blaming each other for inflicting the fatal blow.
The grandmother told The Telegraph: “In my grandson’s case, he told the truth, he was at the place where something (the fatal attack) happened, he was truthful but the events surrounding it are not for me to comment on at this time, but I will be doing after he is sentenced.
“We cope with whatever comes our way, we rally around as a family together.
“I have always told my family to tell the truth, that is important.”
Seesahai, who had only been in the country for six months and was originally from Anguilla in the Caribbean, was attacked as he discussed plans for Christmas with a friend in a park in Wolverhampton last November.
The fatal wound to his back was more than 20cm deep and the blade went through his heart and almost came out of his chest.
He died at the scene after the attack, in which the boys used a nearly 17in-long (42.5cm) blade.
Shortly before the fatal encounter, his attackers, who “often” carried a machete, were passing it between one another at Stowlawn playing fields in East Park, Wolverhampton.
The victim’s friend told the trial he was forced to run for his life but Seesahai stumbled as he tried to flee from the boys.
As well as failing to summon help for Seesahai, the youths showed no remorse for what they had done in the 24 hours before their arrest – with one cleaning the machete with bleach and hiding it under his bed.
They told the court they both played video games in the hours after the killing, claiming they did not know Seesahai had died until the following day.
On Tuesday, it was revealed one of the boys had rapped about knives and drugs aged just nine.
In a video unearthed by The Telegraph, the youngster can be heard rapping along to a song that mentions “pokers”, slang for a knife, and “plugs”, referring to drug dealers.
In court, jurors heard one of the defendants posed for a photograph with the murder weapon, wearing a mask, hours before the killing. He was found to have 11 areas of blood staining on his clothing.
The boy was also seen with blood on his hands in the aftermath of the murder, while his friend had small bloodstains on his right trainer.
The youth who owned the black-bladed machete was incriminated by his heavily bloodstained clothing and man-bag. He said he bought the machete for £40 from a “friend of a friend” whom he refused to name, but police said there was evidence he had searched for knives online.
His hoodie, found by police inside out and mixed in with other clothes in a washing basket, was bloodstained on the front of the right sleeve, the front and back of the left sleeve, the right chest and the lower left front.
Officers searched a storage space under a bed and recovered a machete. A tracksuit with apparent blood stains on it was also seized from a laundry basket at one of the schoolboys’ homes.
The pair will be sentenced on July 30.
