Life for silent teenager who killed Katie, 7
THE teenage killer of sevenyear-old Katie Rough has been given a life sentence by a judge who warned that her “continuing silence” made her a danger to the public.
The 16-year-old, who said she killed the girl because she thought she was a robot, was told she would not be released until she was deemed safe. Mr Justice Soole said: “In the circumstances of your continuing silence, the critical question is whether there is any reliable estimate as to how long that danger will continue.”
Clutching a soft toy, the girl, who was 15 at the time of the killing, sat, head bowed, through the hearing at Leeds Crown Court, watching via video link from elsewhere in the building.
She was given life with a minimum term of five years.
Katie was asphyxiated on a playing field in York in January before the teenager, who was suffering nightmarish “macabre” delusions, used a Stanley knife to make a 6cm slash to her neck and a 20cm cut to her torso.
The older girl was found 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 she had begun suffering from mental health problems more than a year earlier and was “driven by the irrational belief (Katie) may not have been human and needed proof of this”.
At yesterday’s sentence hearing, it emerged that experts could not agree on the specifics of her mental disorder, partly because she had not engaged with doctors.
The girl denied murder but pleaded guilty to manslaughter by diminished responsibility in July.
Katie’s father was in tears as he left court with her mother, Alison. In a statement read by a policeman, the family said: “Our story is about a loving home and family that was torn apart on a day when we lost our daughter. Our story goes on into a future where our home feels very empty, but we will keep going for the sake of our other children and grandson.”