A teenager has pleaded guilty to murdering a 12-year-old Birmingham schoolboy, Leo Ross, by stabbing him in the stomach during a random attack in parkland.
Leo died after being taken to hospital from a riverside path in Shire Country Park, Hall Green, Birmingham, on 21 January last year.
Leo, described in a family statement released shortly after his death as an “amazing, kind, loving” boy, was walking home from the Christ Church, Church of England secondary academy in Yardley Wood when he was stabbed.
His attacker, who was 14 at the time and is now 15, also admitted two counts of causing grievous bodily harm with intent and assault occasioning actual bodily harm in relation to previous attacks on separate victims, as well as having a bladed article on the day he killed Leo.
He denied assault occasioning actual bodily harm and assault by beating in relation to two other people and those charges were ordered to lie on file.
Police inquiries established that the knife used to kill Leo was thrown into a nearby river, while the boy responsible, riding a bike, had previously hunted down and attacked several women in local parkland.
An inquiry by West Midlands police also found that the killer, who cannot be identified because of his age, opted to wait around to talk to officers at the murder scene, falsely claiming he had stumbled across Leo lying fatally injured beside the River Cole.
It emerged that Leo had no connection with his attacker and was killed in what senior officers believe was a random and unprovoked stabbing. The defendant’s guilty pleas were entered more than six months after his trial was postponed to allow psychiatric experts to assess him.
Judge Farrer KC said sentencing would be on 10 February and was likely to last the full day.
He told the defendant: “I can’t sentence you today for a number of reasons. You will be sentenced on the 10th of February and you will be brought from wherever you are being kept to Birmingham where you can speak to your lawyers. In the meantime, you are remanded into youth detention.”