A teenage thug who stabbed a 12-year-old to death at random as he walked home from school can today be named as Kian Moulton.
In a legal victory for the Daily Mail, a judge ruled the 15-year-old could be identified as the killer of Leo Ross, who was ambushed in a park in the Hall Green area of Birmingham last year.
Moulton was jailed on Tuesday at Birmingham Crown Court for life with a minimum term of 13 years for Leo’s murder.
The Mail spearheaded a legal challenge with two other news organisations to argue Moulton should be named as the perpetrator of a shocking three-day rampage which culminated in Leo’s death.
Moulton – who was 14 at the time – dealt a single stab wound to Leo’s stomach and then callously pretended to be a witness by helping to raise the alarm on January 21 last year.
He even spun a fabricated account of how he had come across Leo’s body to police as paramedics desperately worked to save him a few feet away.
In one piece of bodyworn camera footage captured by officers, he said: ‘He was lay there like that when I got here…I didn’t touch him because that could put me in the case.’
He also viciously attacked three other lone women in the park, including an 82-year-old woman whom he pushed into a river and beat with her own walking stick, telling her: ‘I tried to drown you, but now I’m going to kill you’.
Mr Justice Choudhury agreed on Tuesday to lift anonymity restrictions, telling the court: ‘This is a matter of substantial public interest.
‘Knife crime, particularly amongst youths, is a matter of grave concern. This was an unusual and disturbing pattern of escalating violence against random strangers.
‘The importance of a name (in media coverage) cannot be overstated.’
He rejected arguments from the defence that naming Moulton would hinder his rehabilitation, saying ‘the evidence of any progress made thus far by the defendant is scant’.
Indeed, he said Moulton himself had been involved in repeated episodes of violence since being locked up in youth detention.
‘There was a period last year when the defendant was involved in violence and serious acts every few days,’ he told the court.
The judge did, however, agree to delay Moulton’s name being released for 24 hours to allow for any appeals against his ruling to be lodged.
Birmingham Children’s Trust, which is responsible for Moulton’s care, sought an extension of 24 hours to a stay on reporting his identity, but said its application had been refused.
The trust said it intended to apply for a judicial review of the decision to name the teenager, but on Thursday afternoon it said it had not made that application.
West Midlands Police have now released a custody shot of Kian Moulton, 15, after he was jailed for the unprovoked murder of 12-year-old Leo Ross in Birmingham
Moulton was jailed for life with a minimum term of 13 years at Birmingham Crown Court
Leo Ross, 12, was murdered at random by Moulton, then 14, as he tried to walk home from school
Leo was described as ‘the most beautiful soul’ by his family after his death
Alistair Webster KC, representing Moulton, had tried to oppose the Mail’s application to name Leo’s killer.
He said: ‘These were shocking offences which have caused a great deal of sadness and ongoing sense of loss to the family of the victims involved.
‘We recognise that the public and the press will be very interested in how the court deals with the sentence and what the sentence is.
‘But it is sometimes easy to confuse the public interest with an interest on behalf of the public.’
The Mail previously revealed Moulton had a reputation for violent delinquency in the Hall Green area of Birmingham where he lived and was well known to police.
He is understood to have been booted out of mainstream education and even a specialist pupil referral unit after breaking a teacher’s nose and bringing a knife into class.
His expulsion meant he routinely spent his days marauding around his neighbourhood – usually on a bicycle or a scooter – causing trouble and vandalising property.
Moulton’s sentencing hearing heard this week that he endured a difficult childhood which saw him exposed to domestic abuse, while his mother walked out when he was aged just four.
The court was also told he had shown behavioural problems since the age of two.
A family friend told the Mail that, in the months prior to his arrest, Moulton had been terrorising a woman who had fallen out with his father.
‘There were a load of hoax calls going on because his son was phoning the police and sending them to her door for hoax calls,’ the friend said.
‘This had been going on for about eight months. The police had to come out, they were knocking on her door.
‘They were going boot a door in.’
The family friend added: ‘I don’t think he’s a bad lad, I think he’s been raised in a bad environment.
‘There was quite a lot of abuse in that household. Personally, I think this was all his way of getting out of the house.’
The police were said to be in regular attendance at his house due to his anti-social behaviour.
Exclusive CCTV obtained by the Mail showed the moment Moulton threw a brick through the window of a corner shop near his house in 2024.
In the weeks before Leo’s murder, police removed Moulton from railway lines where he ‘had gone with the apparent intention of ending his own life’, the court heard this week.
Another family friend said: ‘His mother disappeared at Christmas. There was a big argument on Christmas Day and she was gone.
‘Kian had been fighting at school, behaving badly to his dad. He’s been fighting in the park with other kids. He used to knock around with a few kids from Billesley but I think around here they all took a step back because he wasn’t the nicest of lads. He was a loner.
‘I last saw him the day the kid was killed, around an hour before it happened. He was walking up the road, talking to himself, shouting to himself, saying to himself what he was going to do and stuff like that. He was on his way out. He was just mumbling to himself.’
Bodyworn footage from police at the scene showed officers talking to Moulton at the scene, where he coolly posed as an innocent bystander
The kitchen knife which was used to deal the fatal blow to Leo and later found to have both his DNA and the DNA of his killer on it
In a legal victory for the Daily Mail, a judge ruled Kian Moulton could be identified as the killer who ambushed Leo Ross in a park in the Hall Green area of Birmingham last year
Leo, who was a model pupil, was seen on CCTV walking home from school shortly before the attack
Moulton gave his fabricated account to police while paramedics could clearly be seen in the background trying to save Leo’s life
Moulton had been circling Trittiford Mill Park looking for victims after attacking three women before he targeted Leo
Speaking after the sentence was handed down at Birmingham Crown Court, Leo’s heartbroken mother Rachel Fisher said: ‘I think the sentence is ridiculous’
Leo was ‘funny, sweet and had not one aggressive bone in his body’, according to his heartbroken family
Moulton was told on Tuesday his sentence meant he will be considered for parole when he is just 27 years old.
Speaking after the sentence was handed down at Birmingham Crown Court, Leo’s heartbroken mother Rachel Fisher said: ‘I think the sentence is ridiculous and the country is an absolute joke.
‘Nothing will bring my lovely Leo back, but with just 13 years it will just keep on happening.
‘This is why kids are killing kids – because the sentences are a joke. He’ll be out in his twenties and he’ll have a big reputation.’
The murder on January 21 last year was the sickening culmination of three days of serious violence perpetrated at random by Moulton against strangers in Trittiford Mill Park.
It emerged on Tuesday that, two days before the murder, he had pushed an 82-year-old woman into a river and told her: ‘I tried to drown you, but now I’m going to kill you’.
He went on to attack two other lone women before he fatally stabbed Leo – including one whom he targeted just half an hour prior to the killing.
Police believe Leo was singled out that day because Moulton was ‘much physically bigger’ than him and the schoolboy represented an ‘easy target’.
Passing sentence, Mr Justice Choudhury told Moulton: ‘What you did in the park last January was horrific and shocking. You went around the park looking for people to hurt. You chose people who were weaker and smaller than you.
‘I hope you realise how cowardly your actions were.’
Opening the case for the prosecution, Rachel Brand KC described attacks Moulton had carried out against an 82-year-old woman and a 72-year-old woman on January 19 and January 20.
She said of the first attack, against Valerie Mann, 82: ‘(The defendant) approached her from behind and pushed her forcefully down and forward, she fell into the River Cole and into a ditch by the river.
‘He said to her “I tried to drown you, but now I’m going to kill you instead” and he struck her several times with her own walking stick.’
The teenage attacker then told her: ‘I would like to get some help, but you will tell on me.’
He went on to tell someone nearby: ‘There’s an old lady in the water and she needs help.’
She was left seriously injured and told police she thought she was going to die.
The following day, Moulton attacked Christine Canty, 72, as she walked through the park, causing her to bleed ‘profusely’ from a head wound.
Then, on January 21, the delinquent teenager also attacked Diana Copplestone, 79, just half an hour before Leo was stabbed.
Leo had been walking home from Christ Church of England Secondary Academy School at around 3pm, wearing his school uniform with his jacket hood turned up against the cold. He planned to meet a friend of his by a tree in the park.
After attacking Ms Copplestone, Moulton was circling around the park on his bicycle ‘hunting’ for another victim to assault and spotted Leo.
It is unclear precisely what happened next, but police believe Moulton pulled a four-inch kitchen knife out and stabbed Leo without much of a wider struggle.
Once he had inflicted the fatal blow, Moulton immediately pretended he had just come across Leo’s body and ran over to alert a member of the public who called the police.
He was arrested later that night on suspicion of assaulting Ms Copplestone, which led police to test his clothes for DNA – finding Leo’s blood on his t-shirt. The murder weapon, which was recovered near the River Cole, also had Moulton’s DNA on it.
CCTV captured Moulton returning home around an hour after the stabbing took place
Mr Webster, in mitigation, said Moulton, now 15, had ‘formidable mental health problems’.
He told the court that the teenager ‘shows recurrent episodes of self-harm’ and other ‘bizarre’ behaviour – such as hitting himself in the face and then storing his own blood.
The defendant was said to have been diagnosed with childhood conduct disorder and ADHD.
Mr Webster said: ‘The fact that Kian has these severe disorders is of no comfort at all to the family of the deceased and his victims, but it is important when looking to understand why this happened that it lay to a degree, even a significant degree, in the neurodevelopmental disorders from which he suffers.’
The court also heard emotional statements from Leo’s family and the foster family with whom he was living when he was killed.
Through tears, Leo’s mother set out the devastating effect his death had taken, telling the court: ‘Everyone has lost the most beautiful young soul – for what? We will never know why such an innocent young boy minding his own business, walking home from school, was robbed of his life for no reason whatsoever. It should never have happened.
‘To any mother, losing a child is the worst thing you can ever experience and losing my boy the way I did will haunt me forever.’
His father, Chris Ross, told Moulton to ‘look at me’ before reading out his own statement, saying: ‘You killed my son Leo Ross, I will never be the same again. It breaks my heart knowing Leo was alone and I wasn’t there to protect him, because of you.’
Amy Weston, one of Leo’s foster family, told the court the schoolboy loved crystals, Pokemon and animals. Referring to how Moulton had lingered at the scene pretending to be a bystander, she said it was evidence of a ‘complete lack of humanity and shows what a dangerous individual you are’.
Moulton previously pleaded guilty to Leo’s murder, as well as two counts of causing grievous bodily harm with intent, one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and one count of possessing a knife.
