A boy who is now aged 15 has been found guilty of murdering a shopper who was knifed to death after challenging him for messing around in a supermarket’s toilets. Jurors convicted the youngster of the killing after hearing how 53-year-old Ian Kirwan was knifed in the heart by the youth – then aged 14 – acting as a part of a masked gang which “terrorised” members of the public in Redditch.
The killer, from Birmingham, travelled with four other boys by train to the Worcestershire town on March 8, last year, where Mr Kirwan was subjected to a minute-long attack near the entrance of an Asda store. Jurors cleared three of those other youths – two aged 14 and one aged 16 – of murder and manslaughter, but found them guilty of violent disorder.
A fifth boy, aged 16, was acquitted of murder, manslaughter and violent disorder, having claimed he was not involved in the fatal confrontation and could not have predicted it. A ten-week trial at Birmingham Crown Court, was told Mr Kirwan, an artificial intelligence engineer who worked at Jaguar Land Rover’s Coventry headquarters, was an “unfortunate member of the public in the wrong place at the wrong time”.
High Court Judge Mr Justice Fraser told the 15-year-old who was convicted of murder: "I know that your counsel will have explained this to you already - you are going to be sentenced to the youth equivalent of a life sentence. But I am not going to pass that sentence (now) because I have to fix the minimum term. I am going to do that on the 15th of February. You will be physically brought to court on February 15."
The youth, who appeared by a video-link to a secure unit, showed little reaction as the jury returned its guilty verdict, glancing to his left and then at a floor, before continuing to watch other verdicts being returned. All those convicted, who cannot be named due to their ages, will be sentenced at the same court, on February 15.
