The tragic death of Ava White highlights how far Liverpool has to come in its battle against violent crime according to Merseyside's Police and Crime Commissioner.
A jury took just two hours and eight minutes to deliver a guilty verdict in relation to a charge of murder against the 14-year-old boy who stabbed Ava in the neck in Liverpool city centre just before Christmas last year. Her killer, Boy A, from South Liverpool, who cannot be named for legal reasons, stabbed the Year 8 Notre Dame Catholic College pupil with a flick knife after an argument about him filming her on Snapchat. Prosecutors alleged the teen laughed and ran away.
Emily Spurrell, Merseyside Police and Crime Commissioner, told the ECHO the case shone a light on how far the city has to come to tackle violent crime and put an end to tragic events like Ava’s death. Addressing her reaction to the guilty verdict, Mrs Spurell said: “Mostly it was just thinking about the family and friends, it was such a traumatic incident and you saw the way the whole city came out and responded to it because it’s never nice when something like this happens, but when it’s a 12-year-old girl, everyone’s looking at their own children and thinking it could have been them.
