The teenage killer giving a false account of finding the schoolboy injured. Photo / West Midlands Police
The 15-year-old boy who stabbed Leo Ross to death in a random attack tried to drown an 82-year-old woman days before the murder, a court has heard.
At Birmingham Crown Court on Tuesday, the teenager was detained for a minimum term of 13 years.
Justice Choudhury said that Leo, 12, had been “an innocent boy” who was “loved by all who knew him with a future ahead of him”.
He said the teenager, who cannot be named because of his age, can be identified in 24 hours’ time, pending a possible appeal of the decision.
Defendants under the age of 18 are granted automatic anonymity and their identity can only be revealed if a judge deems it to be in the public interest.
In the days before the 15-year-old stabbed Leo in the stomach on the way back from school, he injured three women in separate attacks in January last year.
Rachel Brand KC, prosecuting, outlined details of the assaults leading up to the killing. She said an 82-year-old woman was walking alone at some point between 12.30pm and 1.15pm on January 19.
Brand said: “The defendant approached her from behind and pushed her forcefully down and forward. She fell into a ditch next to the river. She believes she had been underwater and found herself soaked.
“The defendant told her: ‘I tried to drown you. But now I’m going to kill you instead’ and he struck her several times with her own walking pole”.
He then told her: “I would like to get some help, but you will tell on me”.
The teenager went on to tell someone nearby: “There’s an old lady in the water and she needs help”.
When the passer-by went to help, the victim was “injured and very shocked” and told him that she thought she was going to die.
The victim was taken to hospital and was found to have sustained multiple bruises and a laceration to her head, a broken nose and black eyes.
She had also fractured a rib and two of her fingers required surgery.
In a second attack, the day before the killing, Leo’s murderer attacked a 72-year-old woman.
Brand told the court: “[The defendant], on his bicycle, approached her from behind and either pushed or struck her with an object on the left side of her back.
“Before leaving the area, he said: ‘I’m sorry’.”
The woman, who was found on the ground by a passer-by, became unconscious and was “bleeding profusely from a wound to her head”, the court heard.
She suffered broken ribs in the attack and had to have hip replacement surgery.
Half an hour before he fatally stabbed Leo, the teenager attacked a 79-year-old woman as she walked alone in a park.
He pushed her to the ground before walking off, smiling.
The court heard that the only injuries to the elderly woman were soreness and muscle strain, but she was “shocked and alarmed” about what happened to her.
In a victim impact statement, Rachel Fisher, Leo’s mother, said her family had been “shattered” by Leo’s death, which happened on his grandmother’s birthday, and his grandfather suffered a heart attack at his funeral.
The defendant looked down at the floor as Fisher sobbed.
“His life should have been just beginning but now he will never get to have his first job, his first car, get married or have his own children,” she said.
“Everyone has lost the most beautiful little soul, for what? We won’t ever know why such an innocent young boy, just walking home from school, minding his business, was robbed of his life for no reason whatsoever,” she added.
Speaking outside court after the sentencing, Fisher said the term imposed is a “joke”.
She said: “It’s a joke. Thirteen years is a complete and utter joke, and it’s just going to keep on happening and keep on happening until something’s done about it.
“These kids aren’t scared. They aren’t scared of the sentence. They’re not worried.
“The local authority and the police have got a lot to answer for.”
Fisher said she fears that more children will be killed by knives, adding: “They’re going to keep on doing it. This country is an absolute joke”.
Speaking about her son, Fisher said: “What an amazing, amazing boy he was. He would never hurt a fly. Not just me as his mum says that – everybody says that”.
Chris Ross, Leo’s father, told the defendant to look at him as he gave his statement from the witness box.
The defendant looked up from the floor as Ross said: “You killed my son, your horrendous act has destroyed me. Look at me.
“It breaks my heart to think he was alone and I wasn’t there to protect him because of you. He was on his own, scared, lying in a bush.”
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Justice Choudhury said: “The defendant has pleaded guilty and falls to be sentenced for very serious crimes, including murder – the most serious of all”.
He said the public would want to know “what could have led a child to commit such acts”.
Alistair Webster KC, representing Leo’s killer, argued the schoolboy was a disturbed young man and there were concerns about his mental health.
He said there were also concerns for his client’s family, who had already been forced to leave the area.
Webster also raised concerns about the defendant’s safety in the young offenders’ institution in which he was being housed, if he was named.
Justice Choudhury said: “Many of the incidents of violence recorded as involving the defendant over the last year while in detention have involved violence by him on others or on himself”.
He added that some of the other boys in the facility already know the defendant’s identity, which “has not resulted in any attacks” on him.
After killing Leo on January 21 last year in Trittiford Mill Park in Yardley Wood, the teenager hung around and spoke to officers, falsely claiming he had stumbled across Leo lying hurt on the ground.
Footage from police body-worn video showed the killer saying he had not touched the victim.
While paramedics treated Leo, who died in hospital, his killer – who was not known to him – claimed he had been riding past on a bike and had made efforts to call for help.
Body-worn camera footage showed him telling a male officer: “I was probably here around about three. I just come out every now and again and ride my bike”.
The teenager has admitted to murdering Leo, as well as two counts of causing grievous bodily harm with intent and assault occasioning actual bodily harm from the previous attacks on elderly women.
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