Baby-faced teen knifeman who stabbed boy, 16, in daylight town centre attack avoids custody

The teenage attacker, who cannot be named for legal reasons, knifed the victim in the back, abdomen and hand in Bradford Street, Shifnal, leaving him covered in blood and with a severed tendon.

After being found guilty after trial of section 18 wounding with intent and possession of a blade in public in February this year, the attacker - who was 15 at the time and is now 16 - was back in front of District Judge Kevin Grego to learn his fate at Telford Magistrates Court.

The court was previously shown CCTV footage of the boy getting out of a blue car, cross the road and rain a series of blows down on the victim, before getting back in the car and being driven away on May 18 last year. Prosecutor Timothy Talbot-Webb suggested the boy was "well up for it" as he "bounced over" to get into a fight with the victim.

However, when cross examined in the witness box, the boy told how he had been ordered to carry out the stabbing by a county lines drug dealer who was exploiting him, and did so out of fear.

Since the boy was found guilty of the attack, the dealer who exploited him has been slapped with a Slavery and Trafficking Risk Order - the first order of its kind that West Mercia Police have had granted by a court.

At the boy's sentencing, Mr Grego said: "It is clear from the trial he was under the spell of (the dealer). If there is a god in heaven, he (the dealer) will receive his just desserts in due course.