Review to look for lessons from Shawn Seesahai murder

Alison Hinds said the city had experienced "absolutely nothing like this" before

A review commissioned in the wake of the murder of Shawn Seesahai by two 12-year-old boys will allow lessons to be learned to avoid a similar tragedy, a safeguarding leader has said.

Alison Hinds, chair of Wolverhampton Safeguarding Together, said it would be made public for authorities across the country to learn from.

But the leader of a youth organisation has said not enough is being done to stop knife crime.

Teswal White said people also needed to look at the factors behind it and ask why there are "12-year-olds thinking its ok to be walking around with machetes and even worse, using them".

Ms Hinds said the review would look into the background involving both boys and publish a report before the end of the year.

She said it would "reflect back on what happened" and ask if there are any lessons to be learned for the agencies involved.

Shawn Seesahai was murdered by two boys who were 12 years old at the time

"We've had absolutely nothing like this in Wolverhampton before," she said.

Mr White, the CEO of an organisation in the Aston area of Birmingham called ACT CIC, said: "What we ought to be talking about is where have we failed as a society."

Mr White described police knife amnesties as a "more of a publicity stunt" and argued "you're not addressing the issues behind it".

"The solution is really simple, it's to prevent it before it actually happens," he said.

The two boys convicted of the killing were 12 at the time of the murder in Wolverhampton, and are the youngest convicted killers since Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, who murdered two-year-old James Bulger in 1993.

Teswal White said society needed to ask why it was failing young people

They killed Mr Seesahai with a machete and must serve a minimum of eight years and six months in custody.

His father, Suresh Seesahai, told the BBC he felt the minimum term should have been longer and Mr White agreed it did appear low.

But he said there was always a back story in cases such as this.