How a British 14-Year-Old Boy was Charged with Plotting His Own Murder

On the 29th June 2003, a 14-year-old known only as John was admitted to hospital with brutal stab wounds carried out by his best friend, known as Mark.

A little under a year later, John became the first person in the UK to be convicted of inciting their own murder.

But how did this come to be?

Mark, who was 16 at the time, came from a middle-class family in Greater Manchester. He enjoyed using internet chat rooms to communicate with friends he had met online, mainly a 16-year-old woman whom we will refer to as AA, with whom he had developed a very close relationship.

AA introduced Mark to her younger stepbrother John, and asked Mark to befriend him.

The boys became friends outside the internet, though very little is known to this day about their friendship.

In June 2003, Mark was contacted via chatroom by Janet, a 42-year-old woman claiming to be a British Secret Service agent.

Mark was informed by Janet that his actions were being tracked, and over time he was set various tasks that would eventually lead to him being inducted into the Secret Service.

Mark completed these tasks as instructed, and kept the conversations secret.

Janet informed Mark that John was suffering from a brain tumor, and likely had little time left to live. Janet claimed she had access to John’s emails, which was how she had come across the information.

A short while later, John confided in Mark, revealing he did have a terminal illness.

This cemented faith in Janet’s credibility, and Mark began doing more and more tasks for her.

On 28th June, Mark was set a final mission by Janet.

She claimed that due to his terminal diagnosis, and his continuous bullying at school, he was planning to commit a school shooting, or something similar.

Janet instructed Mark to kill John ‘for the greater good’. In return for this, Mark would be accepted into the Secret Services, and be awarded £500 000 in cash.

In their final chat exchange, Janet asked Mark ‘could you stab someone?’

The conversation continued back and forth for a short while before the final messages were sent:

‘U want me 2 take him 2 Trafford Centre and kill him?’

‘YES’

The two boys met in an alleyway on Altrincham, Greater Manchester, on the 29th June 2003.

As instructed, Mark stabbed John below the ribcage, and left him to bleed out.

Once he appeared dead, Mark rang for an ambulance. He told police that John was the victim of a savage attack by a robber, going into intricate details that had the Police fooled.

However, CCTV footage foiled Mark’s lies, and he was arrested.

John suffered brutal stab wounds, which pierced his kidney, and lacerated his liver. He remained in intensive care for over a week.

When close to death, John confirmed that it was Mark who had stabbed him, but ‘I don’t know why’.

The computers of both the boys were seized, and criminal intelligence analyst Sally Hogg read through nearly 58000 messages sent between the two, as well as messages between Mark and Janet.

In a shocking twist, detectives were able to link back five or six of Mark’s online friends to John, due to similarity in misspellings and text tone.

These characters included Janet, and it was eventually revealed that John had used these fake profiles to orchestrate his own death.

Janet was not a real person, and Mark had been fooled into killing his best friend.

The two boys ended up in court, receiving supervision orders for their actions.

Judge David Maddison noted that ‘skilled writers would struggle to conjure up a plot such as that which arises here’.

John pled guilty to perverting the course of justice and incitement to murder, making British history. He was given a three-year supervision order and banned from using the internet without adult supervision.

Similarly, Mark received a two-year supervision order, having pled guilty to attempted murder.

The judge added that under normal circumstances, the crimes would have resulted in extremely lengthy jail sentences. However the circumstances could not be described as such, and he believed time in prison would not be beneficial to either boy.

DCI Ross, who led the investigation touched on the depressing nature of the ordeal. ‘It is a tragic event that a 14-year old boy would try to have someone kill him.’

In 2013, the story was adapted into a thriller, directed by Andrew Douglas. The film was named uwantme2killhim? Taking inspiration from the final messages between Janet and Mark.

Due to legal reasons, the real identities of the two boys are unknown to this day. At the time of publishing, John would be 30, and Mark would be 32.

All that is known of the boys is that they have had no contact with each other since their day in court.

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