Lilia Valutyte: Jury finds Deividas Skebas killed nine-year-old in Boston

A man has been given an indefinite hospital order after a jury found he killed a nine-year-old girl by stabbing her in the heart as she played in the street.

Lithuanian national Deividas Skebas, 23, was determined to have fatally stabbed Lilia Valutyte in Boston, Lincolnshire, after a trial of the facts at Lincoln Crown Court.

The two-day hearing took place after Skebas was deemed unfit to face a criminal trial.

Handing down the hospital order, the only sentence the court could pass, the judge Mrs Justice McGowan DBE said: "Given the fact that he has been found to have killed a child, I am of the opinion that the only appropriate way to deal with the case is to make an order under Section 37 of the Mental Health Act 1983."

She ordered that Skebas be detained at Rampton Hospital, adding: "It is necessary to protect the public from serious harm and it is not possible to say how long that will be."

Skebas stabbed Lilia Valutyte outside a shop on Fountain Lane in Boston as she played with a three-year-old girl. Her mother was working in the shop at the time.

She died from a single stab wound to the heart on the evening of 28 July last year.

Skebas was charged with her murder but was deemed mentally unfit to stand trial.

Instead a trial of the facts took place, in order to determine whether he carried out the act of killing Lilia.

Defendants in a trial of the facts cannot be found guilty.

On the first day of the case, the jury was told Skebas, 23, first came to the UK in 2020 from Lithuania, returning to his home country, before arriving in the UK for a second time on 20 July last year.

After arriving in Boston, he was seen on CCTV buying a Sabatier paring knife from a Wilko shop in the town two days before the killing, and in the hours leading up to the incident was seen walking around the town centre.

The court was shown CCTV of the moment Skebas stabbed Lilia before running away.

She died within an hour.

Skebas was unanimously determined to have physically committed the act of killing Lilia by the jury on Tuesday.

After jurors returned their conclusion, Mrs Justice McGowan told them: "It's been an unusually short case and you have dealt with issues that if this were a normal trial would have taken a couple of weeks.

"You have dealt with some very unpleasant material and I'm afraid that that is what juries do.

"I am also going to release you from jury service for the next five years, should you wish to be released."

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