Teen killer who stabbed and smothered girl (7) could be back on streets in five years

A TEENAGER who killed a seven-year-old girl in a park has been told she could be released from detention after five years.

The girl (16), who cannot be named for legal reasons, pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Katie Rough by diminished responsibility in July.

Mr Justice Soole told the defendant, who was 15 when she smothered and knifed Katie, she would not be released until she was no longer deemed to be dangerous. He sentenced the teenager to a life sentence with a minimum term of five years at Leeds Crown Court yesterday.

Clutching a soft toy, the girl sat with her head bowed throughout the sentencing hearing, watching through a videolink from a room elsewhere in the building.

Katie was found with severe lacerations to her neck and chest on a field in the Woodthorpe area of York on January 9 and did not respond to frantic attempts to revive her.

But the judge heard that she actually died from being smoth-

Tragic: Katie Rough

ered by her teenage attacker.

At an earlier hearing the court was told that the teenager was found standing in a cul-de-sac covered in blood and carrying a blood-stained Stanley knife as she rang 999 to tell police what she had done.

The judge was told that the girl began suffering from mental health problems more than a year before the killing.

Afterwards Katie’s family said: “Our story is about a loving home and family that was torn apart on a day when we lost our daughter.”