BOY ACCUSED OF MURDERING GIRL, 9, GOOGLED KILLING CONSEQUENCES AFTER ATTACK

A teenage boy googled "What happens if you kill" minutes after stabbing a nine-year-old girl to death, Bristol Crown Court heard. The 16-year-old stabbed Aria Thorpe once in the chest at a house in Weston-super-Mare, North Somerset, in December. After leaving the property, he walked to a nearby railway station where he told young people gathered there that he had stabbed a child. He told them they would "see it on the news later" and claimed he had been "playing around with a knife" when she "walked into the knife."

One of the teenagers at the station asked to search something on Google whilst the boy was present. Another member of the group contacted police and alerted them to what the defendant was saying. The teenager was arrested minutes later whilst sitting on the floor of a train carriage at the station. In a prepared statement to detectives, he said: "I grabbed a knife and stabbed her in the chest" and "walked over and stabbed her. She fell to the floor. I left and went to the train station to get a train and to get away."

The teenager denies charges of murder and manslaughter. Ray Tully KC, prosecuting, told the jury that the defendant admits holding the knife when the fatal wound occurred. The prosecution states the teenager claims they were "playfighting" when he "jabbed" the knife towards Aria in order to "scare her" and that he expected her to "flinch."