Red flags Holly Newton 'was too young to recognise warning signs'

Logan MacPhail, then 16, was "calm and emotionless" when he was arrested after repeatedly stabbing the 15-year-old Holly Newton. When he was told he was being charged with murder, he replied simply: "Is she dead?" DS Darren Davies of Northumbria police, who was in charge of the murder investigation, remembered MacPhail's chilling demeanour was the same throughout police interviews.

- Mark Brown

Logan MacPhail, then 16, was "calm and emotionless" when he was arrested after repeatedly stabbing the 15-year-old Holly Newton. When he was told he was being charged with murder, he replied simply: "Is she dead?" DS Darren Davies of Northumbria police, who was in charge of the murder investigation, remembered MacPhail's chilling demeanour was the same throughout police interviews. "For someone of his age to have that lack of emotion did seem weird," he said.

It may never be known precisely what was going on in MacPhail's mind as he stabbed Holly in a frenzy. But the reason for it appears to be frighteningly mundane. He had been in a teenage relationship for 18 months and when Holly said it was over he could not accept it. He was jealous that she may have met another boy, so he killed her.

The Holly Newton murder raises important issues about domestic abuse among young people and teenage knife crime more generally.