Teenager kept in hospital over killing of Katie
Seven-year-old’s killer faces assessment
A TEENAGER who killed a sevenyear-old girl in a park has been ordered to be detained for assessment in a specialist hospital for 12 weeks by a judge who told her she poses “a high risk of serious harm to others and to yourself ”.
The 16-year-old girl was due to be sentenced yesterday over the killing of Katie Rough on a playing field in York in January.
Mr Justice Soole instead ordered that the teenager be admitted to a secure hospital so doctors could obtain the “fullest picture” of her mental condition.
He said he was making the interim hospital order after being given the opinion of three specialists who have assessed the defendant.
The teenager, who cannot be identified, put her head in her hands and sobbed as the judge explained the decision. She appeared before Leeds Crown Court via a video link from a different room within the court building.
The teenager, wearing jeans and grey hooded top, did not answer when asked to confirm her name by the court clerk. A solicitor sat beside the defendant confirmed her identify. The order will remain in place until November 24, when the teenager will next appear before the court.
On that date, the judge will have the power to renew the order for a further 28 days.
He said: “I emphasise that this is an interim order only. Accordingly all sentencing options will be open when, at its conclusion, I make my final decision.”
He added: “It is not in dispute that you currently pose a high risk of serious harm to others and to yourself.”
Katie was found with severe lacerations to her neck and chest on January 9 and did not respond to frantic attempts to revive her. A court hearing in July was told Katie died from being smothered by her attacker.
The teenager, aged 15 at the time, was standing in a nearby 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 she may have been trying to prove the youngster was not a robot, as she had “irrational beliefs” about how people “may not be human and may be controlled by a higher and hostile force”.
The girl denied murder but pleaded guilty to manslaughter by diminished responsibility. The court heard how the girl began suffering from mental health problems more than a year before the killing.