A teenage boy has been jailed for a minimum of 13 years for murdering the 12-year-old Liverpool schoolgirl Ava White, a crime that caused “shock and revulsion” in the city.
The 15-year-old boy, who has a legal right to anonymity, stabbed Ava in the neck in a row about a Snapchat video at the switching on of the city’s Christmas lights on 25 November last year.
The judge, Justice Amanda Yip, said the killing had caused “shock and revulsion” across Liverpool and beyond and left Ava’s family with “a life sentence that will never end”.
The boy became one of the UK’s youngest convicted murderers when he was found guilty in May after a 12-day trial.
Ava was with friends to watch the switching on of the Christmas lights in Liverpool city centre on 25 November last year.
The group were larking about when a group of four boys, aged up to 15, started filming their antics. Ava took exception to the filming and confronted the defendant to demand he delete the footage he had posted on Snapchat.
The boy, then aged 14, then thrust a knife into Ava’s neck, causing catastrophic injuries, before he ran off and disposed of his coat and the weapon.
During the trial, he accepted he had stabbed Ava but maintained that he “didn’t mean to” and said he had acted in self-defence. His explanation was rejected by the jury, which convicted him in little more than two hours.
Ava’s mother, Leanne White, broke down in tears as she told the court on Monday: “My beloved Ava dies all over again every morning I wake up. My Ava dies again every moment she is not with us for the rest of our lives.”
Ava’s sister Mia, 18, said she was a “shadow” of her former self and was anxious walking past youths in the street in case they were carrying knives.
She added: “Hopefully if I can change at least one child’s mind about using a knife I will have accomplished something special.”
In a statement read to court, Ava’s father, Robert Martin, said: “Ava was the reason I got out of bed. My reason for living was taken away. When I wake up, I think for a split second Ava is still here. I lose her every morning, and will for the rest of my life.”
The judge said the boy had been exposed to violence from a young age and his behaviour had been “out of control” in the months leading up to the murder.
