Parents of machete attack victim Shawn Seesahai pay tribute to ‘loving’ teen killed by 12-year-olds
The parents of an innocent teenager stabbed to death by Britain’s youngest convicted murderers since James Bulger’s killers said they will never get over the loss of their “loving and protective” son.
Shawn Seesahai, 19, was pierced in the heart with a 16-inch machete by two 12-year-old boys in a Wolverhampton park last November.
The youths, who cannot be named, are the youngest defendants found guilty of a knife murder in Britain.
Previously, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, both aged 11, were convicted in 1993 of killing two-year-old James Bulger.
Shawn’s father, Suresh Seesahai, and mother, Maneshwary Seesahai, said their son came to the UK from Anguilla in the Caribbean for cataract treatment after a basketball injury, and wanted to be an engineer.
Mrs Seesahai said: “Shawn was such a loving son, he was so well-mannered, looked after us, was loving to everyone and very protective.
“He always said he wanted to work, he wanted his own house, his own car. He always said, ‘Mum I’ll be shining, I’ll be shining, don’t worry I will help you’.”
She added: “Twelve-year-old kids should be at home doing school work and then going to bed.”
Mr Seesahai said: “I will remember him every day, when I get home I see his pictures, his clothes, his sneakers, I will always remember him. We are a very close family, we’ll never forget him.”
He feels sorry for the killers’ parents but just wants “justice”.
Family members of both the victim and the defendants cried and hugged each other in the public gallery at Nottingham Crown Court on Monday.
Mr Seesahai added: “This world is a different world, kids are dangerous now. If we don't pay attention to them this will keep happening.”
A month-long trial heard Mr Seesahai was shoulder-barged by the smaller of the two killers, who “often” carried a machete with a long blade, before being punched, kicked, stamped on and “chopped” at with the weapon with such ferocity the blade almost passed through his body.
His friend was forced to run for his life but the victim stumbled as he tried to flee from the boys at Stowlawn playing fields on November 13.
After refusing to answer police questions in the aftermath of the murder, both killers blamed each other for inflicting the fatal blow. One callously told the other: “It is what it is.”
As well as failing to summon help for Mr Seesahai, the youths showed no remorse for what they had done in the 24 hours before their arrest – with one cleaning the machete he bought it for £40 with bleach and hiding it under his bed.
They told the court they both played video games in the aftermath, claiming they did not know he had died until the following day.
Jurors heard one of the defendants posed, wearing a mask, with the murder weapon for a picture hours before the killing.
The image was forwarded to the boy’s girlfriend and his co-defendant with lyrics attached to it from drill rapper SJ’s track Prison Freestyle. The musician, real name Jayden O’Neill-Crichlow, is serving life for a machete murder of Kamali Gabbidon-Lynck, committed in Wood Green in 2019.
Mr Seesahai, a stranger to the two boys, was pronounced dead at 9.11pm after police and paramedics were called to the scene.
The murderers are expected to be sentenced on a date next month.
Detective Inspector Damian Forrest, of West Midlands Police, said: “I have been a police officer for 20 years and this isn’t the first time I’ve been out to a young man who has lost his life in a really violent way, but to then find out that two 12-year-olds were responsible was shocking and made us all on the investigation team stop and pause and think about things.
“In my career, I have not come across children as young as 12 carrying and using a machete in the manner which has been described in court.
“It goes beyond any notion that you might need to protect yourself or that it might give you some sort of status or respect.”
