Family Handout
Shawn Seesahai, 19, was fatally stabbed with a machete in Wolverhampton on 13 November 2023
The UK’s youngest knife murderers have had the minimum terms of their life sentences increased for the killing of Shawn Seesahai.
The ruling at the Court of Appeal increased the minimum terms of the two 13-year-old boys from eight-and-a-half years to 10 years.
The children, known only as BGI and CMB, were 12 when they murdered the 19-year-old on November 13 last year on Stowlawn playing fields, Wolverhampton.
Mr Seesahai’s family welcomed the court’s decision and said it “better reflects the gravity of the actions that took him from us”.
He was stabbed through the heart and lungs with a machete and died at the scene.
The Solicitor General had referred the boys’ sentences to the Court of Appeal under the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme (ULS), which allows sentences to be reconsidered if government law officers consider them too short.
At a hearing on Thursday, lawyers said the sentences should be increased, stating it was a “particularly serious type of case”.
The ruling, by three senior judges, means the boys 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 added full written reasons for the decision would be given later on Thursday.
The boys are believed to be the youngest defendants convicted of murder in the UK
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