Youth admits murder despite winning appeal

Seaon Thompson was just 15 when he joined a gang who beat Mr Robertson with metal bars, wooden posts and a fencing panel before the victim was stabbed through the heart.

The murder took place after a row broke out over stolen Xbox computer games during a girl's 16th birthday party at a house in Rokeby Drive, Parson Cross, in Sheffield.

After a nine-week trial last year Thompson, now 17, and fellow member of the Parson Cross Gang Reece Mendez were found guilty of murder.

Appeal Court judges later ruled that the trial judge had failed to give "sufficiently clear and balanced directions" in his summing up and the verdict was overturned.

Mendez was freed after his conviction for murder was replaced by one for violent disorder. Thompson was set to face a retrial this week.

But at Sheffield Crown Court he instead pleaded guilty to Mr Robertson's murder and will now be sentenced later this month.

Superintendent Richard Fewkes, who led the original investigation, said the guilty plea was welcomed by Mr Robertson's family.

He said: "The outcome is welcomed by the family, in the sense that it brings to an end what, for them, has been a two-year ordeal."