The child who confessed should get a reduced sentence?

Interestingly, though, when people come in here to ask a question about "I am/my DC is in court on Friday", everyone rushes to offer empathy.

I've never seen anyone post on Mumsnet saying they're in court on a murder charge...

They have not been sentenced yet, the sentencing reports will be being prepared now and yes, sometimes a guilty plea does result in a reduced sentence, it depends on when the guilty plea is entered, then there will be the age of this offender to be considered and other factors that we don't know about, The judge imposing the sentences will comment during the sentencing hearing to give context to their decisions

On the news he was seen saying he had been abused and just sat in the car.
child killing bastard

The boys may not have been the intended victims but they were not murdered accidentally.

No sympathy at all for the boy who confessed. He wasn’t an innocent bystander, he had a machete. His fear will never match that of the poor boys who were brutally murdered.

I’m absolutely astounded to read that the adult of the group is a man in his 40s. Driving the teens around hellbent on attacking someone. WTF.

Life should mean life. This wasn’t an accident.

They are ALL callous killers. They had zero remorse (went for a McDonalds afterwards). I do not care how old any of them are. Lock them all away until they reach the age of 75. No chance of parole.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3969807/

I always remember this study and think if you can just keep this 1% of criminals permanently locked up you could massively reduce violent crime.

Thoughts with the victims and their families.

I do think you have to come from a pretty fucked up background to be out on the street at 14 with a machete looking to kill somebody. I don’t know how you get there but ot’s awful.

This sums it up. I completely agree.He was involved in this. Their intent to harm someone was there, sadly, these two innocent boys died so no I don't believe in reduced sentences in these circumstances.

What adults take teenagers out with machetes? He is the leader, his actions resulted in this. If he hadn't driven them anywhere this would not have happened. But all of those who took machetes went to cause harm with weapons that can kill - its only skilled people who can use machetes without killing someone.

The book should be thrown at all of them, yes teenagers are impressionable, but they can't deny what they did and the weapon they chose to take.

Those poor boys so close to safety yet cut down before their lives had really started.

Tragic event, that was completely preventable had the adult in the room acted more appropriately.

It must be terrifying for him.

I'm all out of sympathy.

Why are you referring to the victims as young men and the offender as a child even though they were the same age?

OP is just being a GF. These thugs need to be of the street, they are dangerous.
My sympathy is with the quiet young boys and their families. The OP is just ignorant.

15 and 16 year old boys are not “Young men” OP.

Spoken like a true bleeding heart, lovey Labour voting Liberal.

agree there was intent so i dont feel sorry for him

anoter case a boy o 12 murdered a man for no reason got 8 years what sort of sentence is thar

“It must be terrifying for him” He had a machete, I’m sure he’s fine.

Are you for real? All of these murderers should be locked up for life and the keys thrown away. The families of the two youngsters who they brutally murdered have been handed a life sentence - so should they.

The man driving the car was in his 40s

Let's hope nobody hacks one of your children to death @ElatedShark I wouldn't want any more murderers to be terrified.

I understand the theory for reduced sentence for pleading guilty-yet the crime was still committed!

This. No way should he get leniency for confessing to kill innocent people. Imagine this was your family who was murdered.

He went armed with a machete and admitted killing one of the boys. He's no child. In fact he is the same age as one of the victims. Why do you refer to him as a child and the victims as young men? . He will get Youth detention rather than adult prison to start with. I don't feel sorry for him in the slightest. If you can't do the time, don't do the crime. I hope he gets a minimum of 20 years.

I don't know a lot about this case in particular (nothing other than what's been on the mainstream news media), but it's often necessary to offer reduced sentences to someone who confesses in order to be able to secure a conviction of co-defendants. If there's nothing in it for them, no reason to confess, then the whole case can be much more difficult to prove. The courts don't hand out reduced sentences as a reward for the moral probity of choosing to confess, but simply out of a pragmatic reasoning that it may be the only way to get justice done.

In such cases, prison is not about rehabilitation, it's about keeping the public safe from contact with such people while they are locked up. There is very little in the English justice system that would rehabilitate someone who has gone so badly wrong so young. From that point of view, it doesn't particularly matter how many years he gets, he's still going to be a dangerous thug whenever he is released. The most we can hope for is that he's away long enough for the families to feel that justice was done.

Maybe on this thread no one is making excuses except the op but you've never noticed the double standard where people call teen mum's slags and other names until their sweet innocent teenage son becomes a drug dealer or violently assaults another child and it's all "But he's YOUNG just a baby caught up in the wrong crowd" etc etc

Prison isn't primarily for rehabilitation; it's to keep dangerous people away from potential victims. I hope he is fucking terrified, but he won't be anyway near as terrified as those two innocent boys were.