Two 12-year-old boys believed to be the youngest defendants convicted of murder since James Bulger’s killers will not be named, the High Court has ruled.
The two boys were found guilty in June of the murder of Shawn Seesahai, 19, in November last year after they set upon him in a Wolverhampton park and stabbed him through the heart. Mr Seesahai, from Anguilla, had come to Britain for eye surgery.
In her ruling, Mrs Justice Tipples concluded that naming one of the 12-year-olds who had “extremely complex needs” would be detrimental to his welfare and treatment, which outweighed the arguments that it was in the public interest.
She said the second 12-year-old had made a positive start in his rehabilitation in a secure unit and his naming would “adversely affect” his welfare and that progress.
The two boys cannot be named under the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 but these anonymity orders expire when a defendant turns 18. Each boy is currently being held in a secure children’s unit.
Media sought lifting of restrictions
Jon Venables and Robert Thompson were just 10 when they abducted, tortured and murdered two-year-old James Bulger in Liverpool in February 1993.
After they were convicted at a high-profile trial, Mr Justice Morland, the judge, allowed the boys to be named, ruling it was in the public interest. However, in 2001, shortly after they turned 18, the High Court made an injunction barring the media from publishing their new identities, effectively granting them lifelong anonymity.
Three media organisations – ITN, News Corp and Associated Newspapers – represented by barrister Jude Bunting, KC, had sought to lift the restrictions related to the murder of Mr Seesahai at a hearing in July.
She argued the crime was particularly grave and had given rise to local concern and national revulsion, that the facts were shocking and that it was a case where the names of each boy mattered to the reporting of the case.
The murder conviction shifted the balance in favour of publication which would act as a deterrent to others, she said, while there was a substantial public interest in reporting knife crime. It was also a case where there might be institutional failings.
‘Extremely detrimental impact on mental health’
Lawyers for the first boy argued that he was a very vulnerable child with extremely complex needs, whose functioning and behaviour were a direct consequence of his traumatic and disrupted upbringing.
If he was named now, it would have an extremely detrimental impact on his mental health. The positive progress he had made to date would be undermined, they said.
Counsel for the second defendant argued that there was a real and genuine prospect of future rehabilitation that was likely to be adversely affected if his identity was made public.
If he was named now, he would be prevented from seeking an injunction that could protect his identity after he turned 18, they said. Such orders are exceptional but not unprecedented.
Mrs Justice Bunting accepted that naming the first boy “would have an extremely detrimental impact on his mental health”.
“That, in turn, will inevitably impact on his rehabilitation in the secure unit when, over the course of the next five years (and during his teenage years), there is the opportunity for him to be brought up in the secure unit in a way which will facilitate his rehabilitation which is, of course, directly relevant to his welfare,” she said.
She concluded that the first defendant’s welfare “clearly outweighs the wider public interest in open justice and unrestricted reporting”.
Lifting reporting restrictions may risk ‘defendant’s welfare’
On the second boy, she said there was a real risk that progress in his rehabilitation at a secure unit “will be undermined in the event the reporting restrictions are lifted and, if that happens, that will adversely affect the second defendant’s welfare, and I accept that evidence”.
The boys are due to be sentenced on Sept 26 and 27 in Nottingham. For a murder committed by a person under 18 at the time of the offence, the sentence is detention during His Majesty’s pleasure.
However, when setting a minimum term for a child of 14 or under, the starting point is 13 years in custody.
But Mrs Justice Tipples said that “prior to the consideration of the aggravating and mitigating factors, that minimum term will, however, need to be adjusted downwards to reflect the fact that the defendants were 12 (and closer to 12 than 13) when the offences were committed”.
It followed that they would each be eligible for parole at a much earlier stage in their lives than, for example, a defendant aged 16 or 17 convicted of murder with a knife. Such offenders might not be released on licence before their 30s.
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