A boy who stabbed a 12-year-old girl to death after a row over a Snapchat video has been found guilty of her murder.
Ava White was killed after a “chance encounter” with the 14-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, following Liverpool’s Christmas lights switch-on last November, a court heard.
She was stabbed in the neck with a knife after asking a group of boys to stop filming her and friends, before the defendant “grinned” and ran away following the attack, a jury was told.
The boy claimed he had acted in self-defence and denied murder but he was found guilty following a two-week trial at Liverpool Crown Court.
A 20-second clip showing the stabbing was played during the trial, leaving family members in tears in the public gallery.
The boy had previously pleaded guilty to possessing an offensive weapon after he was found with a flick knife that had a 7.5cm blade.
The trial heard Ava and her friends – all aged between 11 and 15 – had shared some alcohol and were “messing around” near the Royal Court Theatre in Liverpool city centre on 25 November.
The boy and his friends saw them and he began filming a video, which he would later share on Snapchat.
After Ava asked the boys to stop filming and delete the footage, they “jeered” at the girl who ran towards them before the defendant “thrust a knife into the neck of this unarmed child”, prosecutor Charlotte Newell QC said.
She told the court: “His reaction at the time was to smirk, to laugh and to run away, leaving Ava to die whilst he sought to distance himself from his actions.”
Ava’s last words to her friends as she lay dying on the ground were “don’t leave me”, the court heard.
After the stabbing, the boy “began a conscious cover-up” of the crime, discarding his knife, phone and coat, the jury was told.
Image: Ava told her friends ‘don’t leave me’ as she lay dying, a court heard
Boy claimed he was playing video games
After he was arrested, he told a “series of lies” about his movements on the day of the attack, including that he was playing Call of Duty at a friend’s house at the time of the killing.
He also went on to say that another boy had stabbed Ava, the court heard.
Giving evidence at the trial, the boy claimed he was “scared” Ava was going to “jump him” after she came towards him and he had heard someone say: “Delete the f****** video now, lad.”
He said he had wanted to “frighten her away” and did not intend to cause any injury.
“I was just trying to get her away because I was scared,” the boy said.
“I promise, I didn’t mean to hit her,” he told the jury.
He told the court he thought Ava was a boy and he did not know if she was “in possession of a weapon”.
He claimed that after stabbing Ava he ran from the scene because he was still scared and he did not think he had hurt the schoolgirl.
The boy, who has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), was accompanied by an intermediary during the trial.
He also denied an alternative count of manslaughter.
