Warning: Readers may find details of this case upsetting
Opening the case at Nottingham Crown Court on Thursday, Michelle Heeley KC said: “Shawn Seesahai was murdered by being struck with a machete to his back, legs and skull.
“He was also beaten and kicked. The Crown say that these two defendants were jointly responsible for that attack.”
Mr Seesahai, who lived in Handsworth, Birmingham but was originally from Anguilla in the Caribbean, had travelled to the UK to receive treatment for cataracts.
On 13 November, he had travelled to Wolverhampton with friends, while the two defendants were together on the same afternoon, meeting two girls who were about the same age, both who are witnesses in the case.
The court heard one girl told police one of the boys had regularly carried a machete and that he and other boy “were passing it between themselves” on the day of the attack.
Ms Heeley described how the boys had gone out “armed with a lethal weapon” and “had been roaming the streets” while Mr Seesahai was “just with his friends.”
Holding up the machete, she told the court: “It’s understandable how a weapon of this type and size could cause fatal injuries in such a short space of time.”
She told the court the victim was hit so hard on the skull that a “piece of bone had actually come away.”
“He had slash wounds on his leg, and most significantly he had an injury from the machete that went through his body all the way from his back, through his ribs and into his heart.”