A 15-year-old boy has been detained at His Majesty’s pleasure for murdering a shopper after a row in a supermarket toilet.
Ian Kirwan was knifed in the heart by the boy – then aged 14 – who was acting as a part of a masked gang that “terrorised” members of the public.
The teenager, who had travelled to the Worcestershire town of Redditch planning to rob and deal drugs. was convicted of the killing after a trial last month. The youth was ordered detained for a minimum of 14 years.
Mr Kirwan, described by his wife as a “wonderful person” with “the biggest heart”, had only popped to B&Q to buy a light switch before going to Asda to use a toilet.
The killer, from Birmingham but who cannot be named for legal reasons, travelled with other boys by train to the 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 the three other youths – now aged 14, 15 and 16 – of murder and manslaughter but found them guilty of violent disorder.
The older boy had also previously admitted having the 12-inch kitchen knife used for the fatal attack. They were each handed youth rehabilitation orders.
A 10-week trial was told Mr Kirwan, a 53- year-old 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”.
Mr Justice Fraser said: “Mr Kirwan and his wife had that day been looking after a friend’s foster child. This is an example of the sort of caring person he was.
“He went to the hardware store B&Q that evening, when he had finished work, in order to buy a new light switch.
“He used the public lavatory in Asda whilst he was at the retail park. Whilst he was in those lavatories, the defendants came in and began to behave in an extremely anti-social fashion.
“They banged on the cubicle door, shouting at Mr Kirwan to get out, and also made other remarks, one saying he was going to urinate on the floor. They then left.
“It was Mr Kirwan’s fatal misfortune that as he left Asda he came across that group again, waiting for their other friends who were making trouble elsewhere in Asda, confronting customers and being required to leave by a security guard.
“To the distress of those affected by Mr Kirwan’s murder … was added, at trial, the additional insult of having to listen to his reputation being attacked by some of the defendants, who relied upon self-defence.
“I find all Mr Kirwan did outside the supermarket, when the defendants were by the trollies, was to admonish them for their trouble-making and anti-social behaviour in the lavatories.”
In a victim personal statement read to court on Wednesday, Mr Kirwan’s wife Lyndsey Blythe said: “Ian was my rock, my soulmate, my husband. Ian didn’t deserve to die.”
The High Court judge told the court that not only was everyone in the group determined to go to Redditch to cause trouble they were all dressed in dark clothing, with face masks or balaclavas to hide their identities, and some with their hoods up.
Sentencing the killer at Birmingham Crown Court on Wednesday, Mr Justice Fraser, told him: “Mr Kirwan’s murder is a tragedy and so utterly senseless it defies description.
“It is also a stark reminder if society were to need one of the danger of young people carrying knives with them as a matter of routine.
“To family and friends of any murder victim, a criminal trial must seem cold and sterile, seemingly ignoring the impact of those affected – who had done nothing more controversial than going to shops to buy an item that would cost a couple pounds.
“Ian Kirwan never came home, he was murdered by teenagers for no reason at all.”
