Boy stabbed to death was victim of bullying

The boy, named locally as basketball player Shane Jackson, 15, was picked on at his school and by youths in Newcastle upon Tyne because of the state of his home, according to a friend.

A 16-year-old youth is being held on suspicion of Shane's murder. However, the death is not believed to be connected with bullying.

Police discovered the boy's body after being called to a flat in Hallow Drive, in the Throckley area of Newcastle, shortly after 2am today.

Northumbria Police said the victim - believed to be aged around 16 - was not being formally identified yet but neighbours said he was 15-year-old Shane Jackson.

They said he lived with his mother, Debbie Jackson, 40, a full-time mother, in a block of six flats in Hallow Drive.

Shane, who was around 6ft and well-built, attended a local secondary school and had an elder brother called Wayne.

Friend Adelle Carver, 16, said she had known Shane since she was 11 years old.

She said: "He loved basketball, basketball is all he would ever do. You would see him bouncing a ball around the street. It's all he would ever talk about.

"He set up a hoop and would show me how good he was at shooting hoops. Shane used to ask me to play and he used to laugh at me because I couldn't shoot. All he ever wanted was to be a professional player."

The teenager was also keen on exercise and would go running about three times a week, Adelle said. "He loved his Xbox and playing on video games and was into dance music. He had a joyful life. He was dead nice and dead mature," she said. Adelle, who was at school with Shane until she left last summer, said he had been bullied.

"At school he was picked on because of the state of his house," she said. They used to threaten to beat him up. It wasn't physical, just verbal stuff."

In recent years Throckley has been affected by anti-social behaviour but Adelle said Shane was not associated with any of that. She said local youths carried knives but Shane was not one of them.

"I've seen some of the knives carried around because they have shown me," she said. I used to knock around with Shane in the park and they used to say 'Look at this knife'. It's always been like this since I have lived around here."

Adelle said she had been told the name of the youth who was in custody on suspicion of murder. "I always thought they were friends," she said.