Shawn Seesahai: Thousands raised for heartbroken family of teen killed in Wolverhampton
A fundraiser set up for the heartbroken family of a teenager who was stabbed to death by two then 12-year-olds on a Wolverhampton playing field has raised more than £2,500.
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Shawn Seesahai was just 19 years old when he died at Stowlawn playing fields in Bilston on November 13 last year.
The teenager was stabbed in the heart and suffered a skull fracture at the hands of his young killers.
Mr Seesahai had come to the UK from his native Anguilla with his tight-knit family for cataract treatment just months earlier.
Two boys, 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.
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.
On the day of the sentencing, The Anguilla UK Representative Office launched an online fundraiser to help 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, which has a £30,000 goal, has since seen a flood of donations, with one generous person contributing £500 to the cause.
As of Friday afternoon, it had generated £2,661. To donate to the page, people should visit gofundme.com/f/shawn-see-sahai
