A teenage boy who murdered his sister has been named after a judge lifted reporting restrictions. Mali Bennett-Smith, 17, pleaded guilty to the murder of his 19-year-old sister Luka Bennett-Smith at Bristol Crown Court on Monday, March 10.
His identity had not been reported previously due to an order made under Section 45 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act. Offenders who are under 18 years old cannot normally be named by media outlets.
Following his sentence, Judge William Hart considered an application made by the PA news agency for an “excepting direction” to discharge the reporting restriction and allow Mali Bennett-Smith to be named and pictured.
PA argued the order placed a substantial and unreasonable restriction on the reporting of proceedings and that being unable to report that the defendant and the victim were siblings left a “vacuum at the heart of the case”.
The news agency submitted it was in the public interest to dispense with the order, particularly given the current context in Bristol at a period of heightened public concern about knife crime. It also noted that the order would expire in November this year, when Bennett-Smith turned 18.
Ray Tully KC, defending, opposed the application and said public interest in the case would still exist in November and if the press wished to report it, then the law would permit them to do so. He also noted the impact it would have on the defendant and his parents.
Granting the application to lift the restriction, Judge Hart said: “To do otherwise, as the press, in my judgment rightly, advance, would make it impossible properly to contextualise this case at a time when, as they rightly say, particularly here in Bristol, there is heightened public concern about knife crime.”
He noted the defendant had been sentenced within six months of the order and added: “Had this case taken its normal course, given the backlog of trials here in Bristol at the moment, it may well have been this trial would not have taken place until he was 18.”
The judge said he had read a number of reports about the defendant and there was nothing which led him to conclude that publication of his name would have a significant adverse effect on his welfare.