A 17-year-old boy who murdered his older sister for being ‘annoying’ can be named for the first time after he was jailed for just 10 years.
Mali Bennett-Smith, 17, told 19-year-old sister Luka he wanted to practice a headlock on her at the home they shared in the St Andrews area of Bristol on October 20 last year.
But instead of letting go when she tapped him, as they had agreed on previous occasions, he kept the choke hold going before grabbing a knife and stabbing her repeatedly.
He called 999 20 minutes later saying: ‘I stabbed my sister to death. I hated her my whole life and I don’t know, I just didn’t want to ever see her again.’
Jailing Bennett-Smith, Judge William Hart said: ‘It’s often said in courtrooms when a child has died: “It must be every parent’s worst nightmare”.
‘The horror of the loss of their daughter at the hands of the son they still love is beyond even the worst nightmares.’
Bennett-Smith’s identity had not been reported previously due to an order made under Section 45 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act.
But the judge agreed to lift the anonymity order following media submissions that not doing so ‘would make it impossible properly to contextualise this case at a time when, as they rightly say, particularly here in Bristol, there is heightened public concern about knife crime’.
The court heard that Bennett-Smith grew up on a remote farm in New Zealand, where he was home-schooled, but after his parents divorced he moved to the UK with his sister and mother with the aim of going to college to prepare to join the Army.
Bennett-Smith later dropped out of his college course, the court was told.
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He and his sister were at home on their own when the killing took place.
In a prepared statement he later gave to police, Bennett-Smith said his sister, who had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, was ‘annoying’ and he felt she bullied him.
He told officers: ‘After watching a video, I went downstairs to the lounge and I asked Luka if I could practise a headlock on her.
‘She agreed, we have done this before and when she needed me to stop we had an agreement where she would tap me on the arm.
‘On this occasion I had decided I was not going to stop, I wanted to kill her, I had enough with regards she had been treating me over the years and recently.’
Sentencing him to detention during his majesty’s pleasure with a minimum term of 10 years and five months, the judge said: ‘The killing was shocking and brutal.
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‘It has deprived Luka of her life, your parents in effect of two of their children, and will deprive you of your liberty.’
He said the use of a knife, the fact Bennett-Smith ‘undoubtedly intended to kill’ and the brutality were aggravating features.
He added: ‘The scene that met the paramedics on arrival at that house will, I imagine, live with them forever.’
After the sentencing, Detective Inspector Nadine Partridge said: ‘Our thoughts remain fully with Luka’s family at this difficult time. They continue to be updated and supported by specially trained family liaison officers.’
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