Boy, 17, found guilty of murdering 15-year-old Holly Newton after stalking and repeatedly stabbing schoolgirl in alleyway
29 August 2024, 17:03 | Updated: 29 August 2024, 17:15
A boy, 17, has been found guilty of murdering 15-year-old Holly Newton after he staked and repeatedly stabbed the schoolgirl in a Northumberland alleyway last year.
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The boy, who cannot be named by the media because of his age, was convicted Thursday afternoon following a trial at Newcastle Crown Court.
Holly suffered 36 injuries in the knife attack in an alley in Hexham, in January 2023.
The court previously heard Holly had told a friend just hours before being stabbed that the youth was “basically stalking her”.
The defendant, now 17, admitted manslaughter but denied murder, claiming his mind went blank that day and that he had only intended to take his own life. The jury at Newcastle Crown Court found him guilty of murder.
He will be sentenced during a two-day hearing at the same court on October 31.
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The court previously heard how Holly's mother had been so concerned on the day she was killed that she contacted police about the then 16-year-old boy, who was known to her daughter, and it was agreed that Holly should not leave school if the youth was outside.
The jury was told that the 17-year-old followed Holly around Hexham town centre for about 45 minutes as she visited shops with friends after the group had finished school for the day.
Holly had told a friend just hours before he stabbed her that the youth was “basically stalking her”, jurors heard.
The boy asked to speak to her after he saw her outside a pizza shop, then attacked her with a knife he was carrying.
The boy also stabbed a teenage boy Holly was with that day, before members of the public tried to intervene, the court was told during the trial.
Giving evidence by video link, the boy told the trial he could not remember stabbing the girl but recalled getting a bus to Hexham and some parts of walking around the town.
Nigel Edwards KC, defending, asked him: “The night that Holly died, when you go to Hexham, what is it you want to do?
The boy replied: “It wasn’t for going there to hurt her or kill her, it wasn’t for that.”
Asked what he had wanted to happen that day, he added: “To try and take my own life.”
