Mum's agony as Ava White's killer gets minimum 13 years

Damning CCTV footage showed the killer, aged 14 at the time, laughing as he fled the murder scene in Liverpool city centre on November 25 last year. He then posed for a selfie and played on a computer game.

Terrified Ava had yelled "I've been stabbed" after confronting the boy for filming her without permission.

When detectives later quizzed him, he said: "I'm not bothered." And he told one officer: "Shut up, you nonce."

Yesterday the cowardly thug covered his face when beamed into Liverpool Crown Court via videolink.

He was forced to listen as Ava's distraught mother Leanne spoke how her murder has destroyed their lives.

She said: "My beloved Ava dies all over again every morning I wake up. My Ava dies again every moment she is not with us.

"The moment Ava died is now, yesterday, tomorrow and forever. It is the past, the present and the future."

Leanne's sister Mia, 18, told the court: "I am a shadow of my former big, loving, sister to Ava."

She added that her mother had worked at the Primark store outside which Ava was stabbed. But she had been unable to return as it was so close to where her daughter was killed.

Mia also called for youngsters to be educated on the dangers of knife crime, saying: "The society we live in needs to be educated on how the ripple effect of knife crime affects families. Any families affected by murder are left with a life sentence - no early release, nothing."

Ava's dad Robert Martin said: "Ava was the reason I got out of bed, my reason for living. When Ava was taken it destroyed everything I stood for."

Judge Amanda Yip retained the teenager's anonymity, saying there were "immediate concerns for the defendant if his identity becomes more widely known". She added that she had taken into account the boy's family's "safety and welfare".

The judge said: "I understand why Ava's family wants him to be named. I have concluded the public interest is outweighed by the need to safeguard the welfare of the defendant."

Last month a judge at Cardiff Crown Court lifted an order protecting 14-year-old Craig Mulligan after he was jointly found guilty of the murder of five-year-old Logan Mwangi.

A trial in May heard that Ava and her friends had an argument with the defendant and three of his friends after the boys recorded videos of the group larking about after a Christmas tree lights switch-on event.

The killer claimed he accidentally stabbed Ava in self-defence but was found guilty.

The court also heard that the teen hit a community police officer last July and was "desensitised to violence".

Superintendent Phil Mullaly of Merseyside Police said: "If we can intervene at that younger stage with an educational input, or bespoke mentoring, we know we can change the path of a young person's thought process to carrying and picking up a weapon."