Chatroom Suicide Bid

A teenage boy posed as a spy in an Internet chatroom to persuade an older boy to kill him in an "extraordinary suicide attempt," a court heard.

Fifteen-year-old Boy A pleaded guilty to attempted murder at Manchester Crown Court, while the younger Boy B pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice and incitement to murder.

Following chatroom conversations Boy A believed he would be recruited as a British secret service agent if he followed the orders of Boy B to kill him.

Boy A also thought he would be rewarded with a sexual relationship with the spy he thought was a middle-aged woman.

But the spy 'ringmaster' was 14-year-old Boy B who had developed a crush on Boy A.

Boy B groomed Boy A with an "elaborate matrix of deceit" involving a series of fictional identities in the chatroom.

He tricked him into performing sex acts on a webcam and conned him into stabbing him twice in Altrincham in June, 2003.

Posing as the spy and promising sex and money, boy B sent messages to boy A ordering him to stab his friend to death but Boy B survived.

Judge David Maddison said to Boy A: "I accept that fantastic though it seems when looked at now in the cold light of day that such a plot was presented to you, so convincingly were the characters presented to you that you really did believe you had been recruited by the Secret Service to kill your co-accused and face the consequences if you did not do so.

"You were the subject of a degree of exploitation and manipulation and found yourself in a position of conflict in your perceived public duty having been recruited by the state and your real friendship with the co-accused."

To Boy B, he said: "Skilled writers of fiction would struggle to conjure up a plot such as that which arises here."

Boy A was given a two-year supervision order and banned from any contact with Boy B.

Boy B was given a three-year supervision order, banned from any contact with Boy A and was told he must only access the internet under adult supervision and must not enter chatrooms under any circumstances.