Two 12 year old boys have been convicted of murder after stabbing a 19 year old man with a machete

[AngeloMysterioso]

AIBU to be gobsmacked and just terrified by this?!

I mean what the fuck are a pair of 12 year olds doing with a machete in the first place??

What a radical positive change compared to this from 2003 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/glasgow-is-britain-s-murder-capital-as-knife-crime-spirals-80548.html

I remember those times. I would be studying in England at uni then come up to Glasgow for the weekend sometimes to see friends and there would be blood outside clubs from a stabbing that has occurred. It was just normal to us but it really was a madness. I love Glasgow it’s my home, and it has many good points but I still think of it as a bit of unhinged city. Always feels like something is about to kick off with people threatening each other on buses etc “what are ye looking at” the line that has started a thousand fights in Glasgow 🙄 but probably a lot of that feeling is past memories of how it used to be.

In Scotland they don't jail rapists for a first offence (more accurately the first time they've been caught) if they're under 25. Absolutely disgusting.

I couldn't believe it when Theresa May boasted about how stop & search rates had dropped. Worst "achievement" of her political career if you ask me - so much for the Tories being the party of law & order. It used to be that if a police officer wasn't doing a couple of searches per shift their Sergeant would be wondering if they were skiving. Now officers go for months without conducting a search because there's so much bumph involved.

Stop & search saves lives.

And I am sure you could conjure up 'evidence' to match your assertion, there is 'evidence' for every theory.

With some of the wet parenting one reads on this site I am surprised they ever grow up, mummy likes to keep her babies in the nest.

This 👏👏👏
They're fucking scum and should be treated as such

I couldn't give a flying fart about their 'additional needs'
The murderous scum need naming and shaming. And locking up away from decent people. They're a fucking disgrace as are their parents

Are you mad?!?! A 12 year old knows attacking and killing someone is wrong.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-41748235

Here's a report about a true teenage psycho who got let out and tried again.

TattiePants Yesterday 22:54

in the same week that we have the Knife Angel statue and all the amazing work the Brown family have done to raise awareness of knife crime.

I know, it's horribly ironic to consider, isn't it? I was reading about the Knife Angel in the Chronicle, a couple of days ago. It's making me think of that poor lad chased down by a gang of ten in Houghton 3 years ago.

Quite a few of the parents were whining that their little Johnny shouldn't be in jail, because he never did the stabbing. Apparently unaware that the little vermin was part of a gang looking for trouble, helped chase, corner and kick fuck out of him first.

(Edited for formatting)

Do you have anything to back that up?

It's not straight forward guilt on the part of the parents. If it is proved they ignored clear warning signs or that they allowed access to the weapon knowingly then they should be charged too for criminal negligence or something.

There has been research though about teenagers killing in pairs with one being a sociopath and the other being entrapped by a controlling friendship. Either way a full psych evaluation needs to be done on both boys. Therapy and rehabilitation doesn't work on sociopaths. Their prison sentences should treat them as adults and should go far past the age of 18, unlike Venables and Thompson who were both released far too early, especially in the case of Venables who has now reoffended three times.

She came to the conclusion that boys go through a phase where they are entirely impulse driven and lack the capacity to consider possible consequences

This is why I think current society is a bit of a disaster.
Previously, oys at that stage would have been kept in check, physically if needs be, by adult men.
Now we're helpless.

I agree, LordPercyPercy - if there is no strong (in both senses of the word) male in the house, leadership and influence is sought elsewhere - namely gangs. Kids are lured in with money, goods and then drugs - and used for criminal activity as they are under age.

Of course this crime is at a whole other level. We could of punish the mothers, but I can’t see this getting off the ground. “Cause” lawyers would be all over it as the excuses would be endless.

If someone is old enough to murder another person they are old enough to be named.

More Stop and Search would be the logical thing, but then you get the liberal types screaming about racism/profiling, and these days the ones who make the biggest commotion get their way (see TWAW etc). So well done, whinging liberals.

A 12 year old knows that stabbing someone with a machete, with such force to go through their body back to front, is going to kill them. They cannot be absolved of blame just for being children.

A man was actually beheaded with a machete in a village near here, one of the people who did it was 14.
There is something really really wrong in society for this sort of thing to happen. Kids are being brought up to have no chance at a decent life.
My sympathy is for the murdered man and his family but the 12 year olds have been let down as well.

Some of you will have seen the recent thread where a 14 year old punched his grandmother in the stomach and she reacted instinctively and slapped him.
There were a couple of posters literally arguing that she was the one in the wrong slapping a "child". It's those people that are partially responsible for this mess.

"The boys sat in the main well of the court instead of the dock. Alongside them were family members and specially trained staff to help them understand proceedings.
The trial took place in one of the smaller courts in Nottingham to create a less intimidatory atmosphere. None of the legal staff wore wigs or gowns and instead dressed in business suits. The court sessions were reduced to roughly 40 minutes and longer breaks were taken than there would normally be in an adult trial.
The court day finished earlier at 15:30 so the boys would not become too tired, and they were offered fidget toys to aid with concentration."

They should not be getting this soft treatment

Add in to this the post here about the young people murdered in Nottingham - they were students who were stabbed to death whilst walking down a road. Many posters argued for understanding towards the murderer because of mental health. It’s my opinion that I disagree with mental health as an excuse for murder. No sympathy to the scum that is allowed to be put in society because we have to understand somehow their needs - rubbish.

MH is no excuse for murder but it may be a reason and if we provide better MH provision here in The UK we may avoid more unecessary deaths

I think all this gentle parenting is some of the issue too and now we are starting tonsee the consequences of it. Being bought up in the 90s we knew consequences were harsh that was enough of a deterrent. I knew if I did something wrong my parents would 'come down on me like a ton of bricks' so it was an incentive enough to behave.

I think we need to reintroduce harsher consequences not just in the system but parents too.

I'd be bloody amazed if these two thugs are the product of gentle parenting. 🤣

"Yes, your Honour, I'd like you to consider the mitigating factors that they were breastfed until they were four, forced to attend a Montessori school and never made the full five minutes on the naughty step, in sentencing"

‘Terrible judgement’ is a funny way of putting it

Too late for poor Shawn Seesahai but the government announced a ban on the sale or possession of such knives in England and Wales from later this year. A "surrender" scheme due to start this summer will even pay people to give them up. I think they managed to get it through as an amendment to the law in April but am not sure if dissolving Parliament for the election has made any difference to the plans. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-law-to-ban-zombie-style-knives-and-machetes

Online retail does seem to be making it a lot easier for people to get hold of some things but think it's worth mentioning that "the boy who bought the machete used to kill Shawn said he bought it for £40 from a "friend of a friend"". https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cekk3954890o

So greater restrictions on who Amazon and other online retailers can sell to wouldn't have made any difference. Restrictions on what they can sell might have done. But then again, if someone is intent on carrying a blade they can find them in the kitchen. If we made most kitchen knives blunt-tip then we'll go back to the days of 'gangsters' using razors. Or they'll carry screwdrivers. Or throw chemicals. And on and on. It's the mentality that needs to change (somehow), not just the access to weapons.

Such a senseless bloody waste. RIP Shawn .