Teen pleads guilty to murder of schoolboy Leo Ross, 12

A youth with a history of random attacks pleads guilty after a sudden, unprovoked stabbing ends a child’s life and exposes a trail of prior incidents.

A 15-year-old boy has pleaded guilty to the murder of 12-year-old Leo Ross, who was fatally stabbed as he walked home from school in Birmingham, Birmingham Crown Court has heard.

The youth, who cannot be named for legal reasons, entered his guilty plea on Thursday in relation to the killing of Leo on 21 January 2025, when the victim was walking through Trittiford Mill Park in the Yardley Wood area of the city.

The court was told Leo had been on a short route home from school and was speaking to a friend on his mobile phone shortly before he was stabbed once in the abdomen. He collapsed on a riverside path beside the River Cole. Members of the public raised the alarm and emergency services attended, but Leo later died in hospital.

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The defendant was aged 14 at the time of the killing. He also pleaded guilty to possession of a bladed article, after admitting he had disposed of the knife used in the attack by throwing it into the river. The weapon was later recovered during the police investigation.

In addition to the murder, the teenager pleaded guilty to two counts of causing grievous bodily harm with intent and one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, arising from separate attacks on three elderly women in the days immediately before the killing. The Crown Prosecution Service said the victims were pushed to the ground and struck, suffering serious injuries.

The court heard that the defendant returned to the scene of Leo’s stabbing and spoke to attending officers, falsely claiming he had come across the injured boy by chance. CCTV and forensic evidence later linked him to the attack. Police recovered the knife with DNA from both the defendant and Leo.

Investigators said there was no known connection between Leo and his attacker and that the stabbing was unprovoked. During police interview, the defendant answered “no comment” to questions about the murder and the earlier assaults.

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