A teenager has been convicted of murder after stabbing a 12-year-old girl after a dispute over a Snapchat video.
Ava White was killed after a “casual encounter” with the 14-year-old, who could not be named for legal reasons, the night the Christmas lights were lit in Liverpool.
He stabbed her in the neck with a knife after she asked a group of boys to stop filming her and her friends.
After attacking her, the defendant “smiled” and fled, a witness told Liverpool Crown Court during a two-week trial.
The boy, who claimed to have acted in self-defense and denied the murder, grabbed his head in his hands as he was convicted Tuesday afternoon to the applause of more than 20 members of Ava’s family sitting in the public gallery.
A 20-second clip showing the stabbing was played during the trial, leaving his family crying.
The boy had previously pleaded guilty to possession of an offensive weapon after being found with a 7.5 cm blade.
The court said Ava and her friends, all aged between 11 and 15, had shared some alcohol and were “colliding” near the Royal Court Theater in central Liverpool on 25 November. .
The boy and his friends saw them and began filming a video, which he later shared on Snapchat.
After Ava asked the boys to stop filming and remove the footage, they “mocked” the girl who ran towards them before the defendant “stabbed a knife in the neck of this unarmed child.” said Charlotte Newell QC, for the prosecution.
“Her reaction at the time was to smile, laugh and run away, leaving Ava to die as she sought to distance herself from her actions,” he said.
Ava’s last words to her friends while she was dying on the floor were “don’t leave me.”
After the stabbing, the boy “began a conscious cover-up” of the crime, discarding his knife, phone and coat.
Image: Ava told her friends “don’t leave me” while she was dying, according to a court
The boy claimed he was playing video games
After the boy 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 murder.
He also said that another boy had stabbed Ava.
The boy claimed at trial that he was “scared” that Ava was going to “jump” on her after she approached him and heard someone say, “Erase the fucking video now, boy.”
He said he had wanted to “scare her” and that he had no intention of causing any injury.
“I was just trying to push her away because I was scared,” the boy said. “I promise, I didn’t want to hit her.”
He said he thought Ava was a child and did not know if he was “in possession of a weapon.”
After stabbing Ava, he fled the scene, he said, because he was still scared and did not think he had hurt her.
Image: The knife used to stab Ava to death
‘Shut up or nothing’
During the trial, the court heard edited transcripts of five police interviews with the boy in the days following his arrest.
After legal discussions in court, the judge ruled that the jury should not be told that, at the end of his first interview, he told an officer, “Never shut up.”
The boy also referred to “smoking weeds” in another part of the interview and gave numerous answers “without comment”, telling officers that “it didn’t bother him” and that he didn’t “know it”.
A series of text messages were sent to the court between the boy and his mother, including one in which he said, “I’m not going home. I’m not going to the cells.”
During his statement, the teenager was asked why he had not agreed to hand over his phone to the police, to which he replied: “Because they always bring me the phone.
“I got a few phones when I was at the police station.”
Image: A police cordon near the scene in central Liverpool
“They’ll have to live with it”
The boy, who has an attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, was accompanied by an intermediary during the trial.
He also denied an alternative charge of manslaughter.
In statements after her conviction, the Crown’s top prosecutor, Clare Tripcony, said the case has had a “devastating effect” on all involved.
“Ava’s family has heard this at the heart of the case and we will never be able to understand her loss, but as for the other children present, they will have to live with it for the rest of their lives,” he told Sky News. .
He said the hope was for the boy to get a “major prison sentence”.
He will be convicted later.