Ava White: Boy, 14, guilty of murdering 12-year-old girl who was stabbed to death after Snapchat video row

A teenage boy has been found guilty of murder after stabbing a 12-year-old girl to death after a row over a Snapchat video.

Ava White was killed after a “chance encounter” with the 14-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, on the night the Christmas lights were switched on in Liverpool.

He stabbed her in the neck with a knife after she asked a group of boys to stop filming her and friends.

After attacking her, the defendant “grinned” and ran away, a witness told Liverpool Crown Court during a two-week trial.

The boy, who claimed he acted in self-defence and denied murder, held his head in his hands as he was convicted on Tuesday afternoon to cheers from 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 her family in tears.

The boy had previously pleaded guilty to possessing an offensive weapon after he was found with a flick knife that had a 7.5cm blade.

The court was told that Ava and her friends, all aged 11 to 15, had shared some alcohol and were “messing around” near the Royal Court Theatre in Liverpool city centre on 25 November.

The boy and his friends saw them and he began filming a video, which he would later share on Snapchat.

After Ava asked the boys to stop filming and delete the footage, they “jeered” at the girl who ran towards them before the defendant “thrust a knife into the neck of this unarmed child”, Charlotte Newell QC, for the prosecution, said.

“His reaction at the time was to smirk, to laugh and to run away, leaving Ava to die whilst he sought to distance himself from his actions,” she said.

Ava’s last words to her friends as she lay dying on the ground were “don’t leave me”.

After the stabbing, the boy “began a conscious cover-up” of the crime, discarding his knife, phone and coat.

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 killing.

He also said that another boy had stabbed Ava.

The boy claimed at trial that he was “scared” Ava was going to “jump him” after she came towards him and he heard someone say: “Delete the f****** video now, lad.”

He said he had wanted to “frighten her away” and did not intend to cause any injury.

“I was just trying to get her away because I was scared,” the boy said. “I promise, I didn’t mean to hit her.”

He said he thought Ava was a boy and he did not know if she was “in possession of a weapon”.

After stabbing Ava he ran from the scene, he claimed, because he was still scared and he did not think he had hurt her.

‘Shut up you nonce’

During the trial, the court heard edited transcripts of five police interviews with the boy in the days after his arrest.

After legal discussions in court, the judge decided the jury should not be told that at the end of his first interview, he told an officer: “Shut up you nonce.”

The boy also referred to “smoking weed” in another part of the interview and gave numerous “no comment” answers, telling officers he was “not bothered” and he didn’t “f****** know”.

A series of text messages sent between the boy and his mother were shown in court, including one in which he said: “I’m not coming home. Not going the cells.”

During his evidence, the teenager was asked why he had not agreed to give his phone to the police, to which he replied: “Because they always take my phone.

“I have had a few phones took when I was in the police station.”

‘They will have to live with this’

The boy, who has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, was accompanied by an intermediary during the trial.

He also denied an alternative count of manslaughter.

Speaking after his conviction, senior crown prosecutor Clare Tripcony said the case has had a “devastating effect” on all those involved.

“Ava’s family have felt this at the heart of the case and we can never understand their loss but, in terms of the other children present, they will have to live with this for the rest of their lives,” she told Sky News.

She said the hope was that the boy would get a “significant custodial sentence”.

He will be sentenced at a later date.