Bid to help parents of Shawn Seesahai who spent 'life savings' visiting UK after 19-year-old's murder

Shawn Seesahai, aged 19, was stabbed in the heart and suffered a skull fracture at Stowlawn playing fields in Bilston on November 13 last year.

Mr Seesahai had come to the UK from his native Anguilla with his tight-knit family for cataract treatment just months earlier.

His killers, now 13, were convicted in June of his murder and sentenced at Nottingham Crown Court on September 27 to at least eight years and six months in custody for his murder.

They were described at the sentencing as "the youngest knife murderers" and are believed to be the youngest defendants convicted of murder in the UK since Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, both aged 11, were found guilty in 1993 of killing two-year-old James Bulger.

Both boys – who cannot be named due to a court anonymity order – blamed the other for inflicting four wounds with the machete, after a dispute with the victim about sitting on a park bench.

One of the boys admitted possession of the knife prior to the trial, while the other was found guilty of the same charge when they were both unanimously convicted of murder on June 10.

At the sentencing, High Court judge Mrs Justice Tipples said she could not be sure which of the boys had inflicted a 23cm-deep wound which almost passed all the way through Mr Seesahai’s body.

The Anguilla UK Representative Office has now launched an online fundraiser with a £30,000 goal to raise funds for Mr Seesahai's heartbroken family who spent "their life savings" and reportedly took out a loan to bring his body home and travel to the UK for the court trial.

A statement on the GoFundMe page reads: "Shawn Seesahai, a young student, was tragically killed in a knife crime by two [then] 12-year-old boys while in the UK seeking medical treatment.

"His family has spent their life savings and had to take out a loan to repatriate his body, bury their son, and travel to the UK for the trial.

"This GoFundMe will, we hope, go some way to help the family with the huge costs they have incurred from this tragedy."

The fundraiser had generated almost £600 as of Thursday morning.

In a statement issued by the Government of Anguilla after the sentencing of his killers, Mr Seesahai's family described feeling "disappointed".

It read: "Whilst the family recognise that today justice has been served in respect of the horrific murder of their beloved son Shawn, they are disappointed with the sentence.

"Shawn’s life was violently taken away at the hands of individuals who were knowingly carrying a machete, which they used to violently kill their beloved son."

The statement added: "Whilst they recognise that three young lives have been destroyed, they alone have lost their son forever, and they do not feel the sentence reflects the loss they have suffered daily since their son was murdered.

"If low sentences are given it will not be a deterrent to other children who carry knives."

To donate to the GoFundMe page, people should visit gofundme.com/f/shawn-see-sahai