Teen posted Snapchat video with murder weapon after Reece Tansey killing

15 year old Reece Tansey arrived in Walker Avenue, Bolton on May 4th last year, he was then stabbed six times by Mark Nuttall also 15. Reece banged on a nearby house’s door as he desperately pleaded for help in his final moments before falling to the ground.  Officers were called to Walker Avenue at around 4.45am to reports of a knife attack. 

Police arrived at the scene minutes after Reece was found, and the young boy was rushed to Salford Royal Hospital. He was pronounced dead at 5.45am. The teen’s death was caused by ‘multiple stab wounds’, which ‘were likely to have been inflicted by a knife with a 10-12cm blade’, a pathologist concluded.

The reason he was stabbed was over a Snapchat argument between his friend and the two suspects.

After the murder Boy A sent a Snapchat video of himself carrying a knife covered in blood after fleeing. He captioned the clip with the word ‘muppet’. Police have released a video showing how two teenage boys chased down 15-year-old Reece Tansey down a Bolton street before stabbing him.

It shows the two boys chasing Reece down Walker Avenue in Great Lever, Bolton, where they had arranged a fight via Snapchat messages.

The attacker later messaged Boy B, saying: ‘I thought it only went through his coat so I kept doing it. He’s dead now.’

Boy B replied with a laughing emoji.

Advertisements

Both teenagers today appeared at a sentencing hearing at Manchester Crown Court, where judge Justice Farbey was told there was a ‘long-standing hate’ between Boy B and Reece, and Boy A had been brought into the dispute as support.

During a three-week trial, jurors heard that the two boys had goaded Reece and his friend into meeting them, but he was initially reluctant.

The court heard he had sent a message to his friend, which read: ‘Getting brought into your s*** again. Ain’t in no f****** mood’.

All four boys eventually agreed to meet that night and Reece left home and headed to the rendezvous point near Great Lever Park. But as Reece was on his way, his friend informed him that he had decided to stay in bed. Reece used his final breath to tell two men who discovered his body the names of his killers. 

Subculture

Richard Wright QC, who represented Boy A in the trial, told the court how the dispute was part of a ‘petty subculture’ brought on via social media.

Mr Wright said: ‘It is a fact that they were all young people and a fact that their culture, that all of them engaged in, driven by social media led to them meeting up.’

He added: ‘It might be said that all were particularly vulnerable due to their age, from being drawn into this petty sub-culture of social media interactions and bravado.

Advertisements

‘They were all vulnerable to that and unfortunately one of them lost their life.’

In a victim statement read out in court, Reece’s mother said: ‘Reece was our 15-year-old son, 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.

‘Reece was fiercely protective of his mum and little brother, and saw himself as the man of the house. His dad saw him as his best friend.

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

His family said in a tribute shortly after the attack: ‘Reece was a 15-year-old boy – cheeky and funny. He had a twinkle in his eye and a ready smile.

‘Reece loved nothing more than spending time with his family and friends. He had a sense of humour that was contagious, he regularly played pranks on his mum and dad, which left his little brother in heaps of giggles.

‘Reece had an ability to make you smile and it was often difficult to be serious with him.

‘He was at an age where he was starting to find his way in life, and become his own person, but he always needed his mum and adored her and the rest of his family.

‘His life has been tragically cut short, his death is something that we will never understand and certainly never get over.

The identities of two teens who stabbed a “cheeky” and “funny” schoolboy to death following a row have been revealed for the first time.

A judge lifted reporting restrictions that prevent the boys’ names from being made public due to their age.

James White, 15, and Mark Nuttall, 16, of Bolton, Greater Manchester, were found guilty of stabbing young Reece Tansey to death.

White received a 15-year sentence while his co-accomplice was jailed for six years at Manchester Crown Court.

The killers met with Reece after arranging a fight over Snapchat in the early hours of May 4. 

The boys met on Walker Avenue, Bolton, where altercation broke out in which Nuttall stabbed Recce with a kitchen knife six times. Following the attack, the defendants ran off, leaving Recce severely injured. He was found by local residents and emergency services were called out – but the teen tragically died at the scene. Police said Reece had staggered to a house after being attacked near a primary school and desperately knocked on the door for help.

Arshad Mahmood, 48, told how his friend Faifal Shah had gone to the young boy’s aid after returning home from a nearby mosque and phoned an ambulance. He said: “He pulled up in his car and the boy was shouting, ‘Help, help!’ “Faifal could seen he was in a state and he was bleeding quite badly.

“The boy had knocked at a few doors to try to get help after seeing the lights were on inside. “You can see blood marks on the doorsteps of the houses.” Mr Mahmood added: “It’s a terrible thing to happen, I have a teenage boy of my own.”

Another resident, who didn’t wish to be named, said she’d heard the victim had been attacked by two other males. “My wife’s cousin lives on the road and heard that’s what happened,” he said. “But I don’t know what it was about.” Reece’s uncle James said the boy had slipped out of his house via his bedroom window after receiving a text message.

James believes Reece was lured to an ambush after wrongly being implicated in a car theft a few weeks earlier. “He was a good boy,” he said. “He was innocent and he just caught up with the wrong lads. “Somebody messaged him and said come and meet me. He thought he was going to meet one person but it was set up.” Dozens of weapons have been handed in by children after knife crime training in schools in the wake of the murder of Bolton teen Reece Tansey, councillors have heard.

The ‘Let’s End The Hurt’ one-day training programme on the dangers of carrying knives has been delivered to around 20,000 children in total at Bolton’s 20 secondary schools. A meeting of the borough’s children’s scrutiny committee heard a presentation on youth crime in Bolton, in which the prevalence of children carrying and using knives was discussed in detail.

Shockingly, she said many young people carrying weapons do not know that stabbing someone with a knife can kill them.

She said: “We have engaged with and excellent training programme ‘Let’s End The Hurt’ with GMP and secondary schools. “This was following the tragic murder of Reece Tansey. “We provided one day training to raise awareness in young people around knife crime.

“Lots of young people carry knives but don’t realise you can kill people with them.

“That sounds crazy but when you talk to young people they carry them because they’re worried about being attacked but they’re not clear that if you stab somebody in the body you could quite likely kill them if you hit the wrong place.

Addressing wider criminality among children, the meeting heard that as of December there were 95 children in Bolton borough who have been released under police investigation and another 21 children on police bail.

Between September 1, 2021 and the start of December,  485 children were released with no further action taken.

Ms Brown said: “That doesn’t mean that things didn’t happen but that the CPS are unable to progress the cases for a whole host of reasons.”

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.

We have sat through this trial and have had to watch footage of our son running for his life and ultimately dying on the pavement.

We didn’t get a chance to say goodbye or hold his hand during his last moments of life. How is this fair? Reece did not deserve this.

We would like to thank the two men who came upon Reece that’s morning and came to his assistance, for the reassurance they gave him when he was at the end of his life. For that we are thankful.

On behalf of ourselves and our family, we request that the persons responsible for taking Reece’s life are given a sentence that reflects the devastating effect this has had on his family – a sentence severe enough that it could possibly deter others from using knives and taking the life of another young boy.

Ian Nice, Reece’s heartbroken father, wants tougher sentences for those who carry and use knives and is offering to help organisations which campaign against knife crime.

He has already spoken about the effect of Reece’s murder at the recently formed BoltonStopKnifeCrime group event and is delighted their efforts to try and rid the streets of knives is being supported by the Bolton Wanderers Remembrance Group, as he and his son were both big fans of the club.

Mr Nice last saw his son the weekend before he was killed and spoke to him on the phone just hours before he was killed and invited him to come to his house for a takeaway and to “chill out” with him.

Reece decided not to go but in the early hours of the morning, after being goaded over social media, he left his mum’s home, unarmed, to meet his attackers for a fight.

Mr Nice says the sentences given to the teenagers who killed him are not enough.

“I don’t think the sentences were right. But they could have got 100 years each and it would not have been enough. It is not going to bring Reece back,” he said.

He says that he has been sickened, since Reece’s death, when hearing of more knife killings around the country.

About Author

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Advertisements
Advertisements