A judge has declared a man accused of murdering a nine-year-old girl found stabbed in the street is unfit to stand trial.
Deividas Skebas, a Lithuanian national, was charged over the killing Lilia Valutyte in Boston, Lincolnshire, on July 28 last year.
At a hearing at Lincoln Crown Court on Monday, Judge Simon Hirst said the 23-year-old is not fit to enter a plea or stand trial.
Instead, a trial of the facts has been scheduled at the same court for 10 July. Skebas, of Thorold Street, Boston, was not at Monday morning’s hearing.
Lilia was found with a stab wound in Fountain Lane, Boston, at about 6.20pm, and had been seen playing with a hula hoop minutes before she was stabbed. An inquest opening later heard she died from a wound to her chest.
A trial of the facts is where the prosecution sets out the case in front of a jury but the defendant does not have to play a part in proceedings or be present in court.
The jury then decides if the defendant committed the alleged offence, though their conclusion cannot result in a criminal conviction.
Lilia’s mother Lina Savicke previously announced plans to create a statue of her daughter as a “way for her to still be there”.
In a tribute released in the days after her death, she said: “It’s hard to know what to say.
“She was just a normal child, one day she’s happy and another she isn’t, one day she wants to eat pancakes and another she doesn’t – the usual things.
“She loved to dance, travel and try new things, and annoy her sister. She wanted to go to Italy, so we will probably go anyway next year.”
Lina added: “There are so many things we could say, but we are not going to talk a lot about who she was and share those stories from our home; they are ours and we want to keep them for us.
“You find yourself looking for her everywhere. We had four corners and now one is gone.”
