Teenage boy acquitted of murder and manslaughter after killing girl

[StarlightRobot]

Is anyone else baffled by the acquittal of a teenage boy who stabbed and killed nine year old Aria Thorpe. I can vaguely understand the acquittal for murder but how on earth has he been acquitted for manslaughter? He got a knife from the kitchen and stabbed her in the cheat while she was eating her dinner for goodness’ sake! Then he left her bleeding to death and hid on a train. It’s another example of the lives of girls just not mattering.

Imagine him now returning to live in his family home. As a mother or sister I would be in constant fear now he's proven himself capable of that act (even if legally it's not been considered 'murder').

ive explained why above. Read that or ask Google.

I agree, no 15 year old thinks it’s remotely reasonable to ‘play fight’ with a knife or acceptable to get a knife and use it to scare a 9 year old girl. He clearly knew the fallout of his actions given he left her to bleed out, went to meet friends while the girl was dying, and when he told his friends what he had done and she called the police he legged it on a train to get away.
I would bet that he now thinks he is invincible and I imagine there are worse things to come.

This is the problem for me. I don’t understand how he has been allowed to let her die and just scarper.

Prepare to get flamed, nobody wants to understand the law today 🤣

This reminds of that horrible defence of ‘accidentally’ strangling and killing a woman during a ‘sex game’. But I had understood there were cases where that defence has failed even though there was no evidence to disprove the ‘sex game’ defence. If there are any criminal lawyers here I would be interested in their views.

Well, he probably just forget to mention that they'd both been playfighting and it was actually her who impaled herself on a knife. That he happened to be holding. Poor little chap, he must have been so discombobulated by her overreaction to being stabbed that it fell right out of his mind. Won't anybody think about his mental health? He might be traumatised for months by something like this. It could affect his GCSEs and everything, I do hope he gets extra time in his exams.

dropping the rocks it is foreseeable that an accident could occur. That’s why. You’ve taken the action knowing you could hit the cars and cause damage.

I agree @Newstart26hes clearly dangerous, who picks up a knife and does that. It’s very strange, I can’t get over it only took them 2 hours to decide. We now have a 15 year old boy in the community who has stabbed someone claiming they were only play fighting. Actually not just anyone a small 9 year old girl 😔.

Occasionally juries do come to mind boggling decisions. We are well aware by now that there are a lot of wronguns walking among us, often many people do unfortunately think young men should not really have to face the consequences of their actions if it’s going to result in them being uncomfortable and having ‘his life ruined’.

Exactly. It sets a very dangerous precedent. "We were just playing and I accidentally killed her". Oh, OK then...nothing to see here. Poor family x

He’s a child. Children all develop at different ages. What if he had a brain injury?

Ok so:

Murder - you intend to kill or really seriously harm somebody, and then either kill them or really seriously harm them in a way that directly leads to their death.

There are several types of manslaughter in England and Wales. Gross negligence manslaughter is generally used for cases where (eg) an employer doesn’t provide protective equipment and their employee dies as a result in a work accident. That kind of thing.

Then there’s illegal act manslaughter which is where the defendant intentionally commits an unlawful, objectively dangerous act that unintentionally causes a person's death, lacking the specific intent required for a murder charge.

Waving a knife about to scare somebody is both illegal and objectively dangerous. A 10 year old could tell you that. He admitted to this, and never wavered from it. Even if she was not killed it would be ‘threatening with an offensive weapon in a private place’ – maximum 4 years' imprisonment - s52 of the Offensive Weapons Act. Illegal. This act lead to her death.

So in my eyes there is no way this wasn’t manslaughter; even if we just went by his (heavily witnessed, consistent, unretracted) confessions.

The problem is, possessing a knife in a private home is not illegal. (It would be a different matter if he'd stabbed her on the street.) And there's no offence of playing with a knife, probably because most people aren't that stupid and because juries are rarely going to be convinced by an "I was just playing" defence. In this case I would guess the age of the accused, potentially alongside other factors we don't know about, has convinced them that he might actually be telling the truth. If he'd been a few years older I doubt he'd have got away with it.

You’re not really making the point you think you are. The only fathomable thing is that there was something that happened during the trial that we aren’t aware of.

To say throwing rocks on a bridge had a foreseeable consequence but jabbing a knife at a 9 year old girl didn’t is actually just not logical.

There will be a serious case review, either already in circulation now that there's been a verdict or on its way

Sounds like an awful accident.

@JonasBogeys knives should be out of reach for anyone who is not developmentally able to know how to use them safely

Agree completely. The logic is the same - doing something ‘playful’ which may or may not cause very serious injury but a risk you’re willing to take for your funsies. The whimsy element of it doesn’t excuse the risk and therefore the crime.

Oh God here we go again.

Yes possessing a knife at home is illegal if it is an ‘illegal blade’ like a zombie knife.

That wasn’t the case here however the base offence for a manslaughter charge isn’t ‘possession’, it would be threatening her with a bladed article, which is absolutely illegal even if done in a private dwelling and with a kitchen knife.

Unlike Stabbing with a kitchen knife in which it’s not at all foreseeable that you could hit a person and cause damage?

None of those are criminal offences on their own. They might be aggravating factors to a crime. As he was acquitted they are moot anyway - he did not leave the scene of a crime, as there was no crime.

Unlike France, failing to aid an injured person is not a criminal offence in this country.

Sounds like an awful accident.

He came home in a temper after being expelled. Then he had his phone taken off him and likely a telling off. That obviously put him in a temper then he stabbed a girl. Then he did a runner. Then he borrowed a phone and instead of calling an ambulance he googled his crime.

Doesn't sound like an awful accident to me. It sounds like she wound him up, as kids often do, and he stabbed her in a rage. That's murder.

I'm sure of that beyond reasonable doubt, and the jury should have been too, IMHO.

Yes this is 100% correct (sadly).

Can't you see the danger with some random person declaiming as you are? The jury had all the facts and made their decision
This mob mentality is the opposite of justice