GUILTY: Shocking evidence which led jury to convict schoolboy killer of murder

Now, at the end of a month-long trial at Manchester Crown Court, a jury, who deliberated for more than 29 hours, has found one of his 15-year-old killers, Boy A, guilty of murder and accomplice, Boy B, guilty of manslaughter.

The defendants remained expressionless as the verdicts were announced but there were quiet sobs from the public gallery where Reece’s family maintained a dignified silence.

During the trial a jury of seven men and five women heard shocking details of how 15-year-old Reece was goaded over social media into arranging a fight with his teenage attackers, who he had never met, and who assured him it would be a fist fight.

But that was a lie and within seconds of arriving at Walker Avenue, Great Lever, in the early hours of May 4, he was stabbed repeatedly by Boy A.

During the trial Richard Wright QC, who defended Boy B, described how the defendants tried to act like “two-bit gangsters”who were not afraid of violence and portrayed themselves as such to acquaintances on social media.

READ MORE: Timeline of the trial

The court heard that Reece was friends with a teenager that Boy B hated, but after agreeing to a two v two fight with Boy A and Boy B, the pal changed his mind and Reece went to the meeting on his own just after 4.30am.

The court heard how Boy B, then aged 14, pulled out a knife as Reece swung a punch at Boy A and Reece was then chased along the road by Boy A.

He was brutally stabbed a total of six times by Boy A, who had taken his knife, plus one he gave to Boy B, from a kitchen drawer at his home.

As Boy B followed and stood on the side lines shouting encouragement, Reece was repeatedly attacked and on one occasion fell to his knees in the middle of the road while Boy A plunged a knife into his back.

Walker Avenue

A pathologist told the jury that each of three stab wounds could have proved fatal on their own, with wounds up to 12cm deep. One stab wound, which chipped a bone, would have taken particular force and another severed a major artery and vein in Reece’s arm, resulting in massive bleeding.

As Boy A and Boy B ran off, Reece staggered along the street, dripping with blood, to try and get help from Faisal Shah and Rameez Khan, who were sitting in a car, having just returned from Ramadan prayers at their mosque.

The men, fearing for their safety, drove off and called the emergency services, but returned a short time later to find Harper Green School pupil Reece collapsed in a house front garden.

The front door was smeared with blood as he had been banging on it in a desperate attempt to get the occupants’ attention.

After reassuring a dying Reece that an ambulance was on its way Mr Shah and Mr Khan asked who had injured him. Reece named his attackers and a short time later went into cardiac arrest.

He was rushed to hospital but doctors were unable to save him.

On their way home Boy A made a chilling video of himself carrying the blood-covered knife which he posted on Snapchat and bore the caption “muppet”, before he buried the weapon in mud by Doe Hey Brook.

Back at home, Boy A and Boy B sent each other a series of messages.

At one point Boy A stated, “He’s dead now”, to which Boy B replied with a laughing emoji.

And Boy A also admitted: “At first I thought it [the knife] only went through his coat so I kept doing it.”

Later that morning, as news of Reece’s death spread via social media, Boy A and Boy B told their families about the fight and they were arrested by police, but not before Boy A did a factory reset of his mobile phone in a bid to destroy evidence.

A police investigation team were able to recover many of the messages and pieced together CCTV images showing the routes that Reece and his murderers took.

Boy A admitted causing Reece’s death but denied murder, claiming he did not intend to kill or seriously injure him.

Boy B also denied murder, alleging that he did not see Boy A with a knife at any point or know that his friend had stabbed Reece. He told the jury that an object, seen on CCTV in Walker Avenue, in his own hand was a mobile phone.

The case has now been adjourned until December 20 when Mrs Justice Farbey will sentence each of them. The only sentence available for Boy A will be “detention at Her Majesty’s pleasure” and the judge has asked for reports on Boy B so she can assess his dangerousness.

Following the verdicts, which came after eight days of deliberations, Reece's parents, Laura Tansey and Ian Nice, who sat through the trial listening to the harrowing evidence issued a statement appealing for their son's death to not be in vain.

READ MORE: Don't let Reece's death be in vain

"He made us smile, he made us laugh, he made us tear our hair out at times, a typical teenage lad, but he was ours," they said.

"Reece was simply our world, and his death has devastated us beyond belief.

"When Reece was born, never did we imagine that in 15 short wonderful years later, his life would be taken in an act of violence that is beyond comprehension.

"Nothing will ever bring Reece back to us, but we ask that his death not be in vain. Let Reece's death and the circumstances surrounding it, be used to educate young people about the consequences of carrying knives."

Det Insp Nicola McCulloch, who led the murder investigation added: "This incident should be a stark reminder to all those who carry knives that your actions can destroy lives and GMP will not tolerate knife crime. If you use a knife as a weapon you will face the consequences."