Lilia Valutyte stabbing: Mother says she will never leave Boston

A grieving mother whose nine-year-old daughter was killed in a Boston street has said she will never leave the town despite the tragedy.

Lilia Valutyte was fatally stabbed as she played with a hula hoop in Fountain Lane on 28 July last year.

Her mother, Lina Savicke, has spoken in a BBC documentary and praised the town's support, saying: "I'm not going to leave that place."

Lilia's killer Deividas Skebas was handed an indefinite hospital order.

Ms Savicke said in The Killing in the Lane, available on BBC iPlayer, she was "really surprised" that even on the day of the funeral at Boston Stump, "many people showed us respect".

She said: "I'm not going to leave that place. I don't know if the spirit is not there. I just feel I have to be there.

"That's why probably Boston will... yeah, we are going to stay in Boston."

Ms Savicke moved to the town from her native Lithuania in February 2009. She opened first a café and then an embroidery shop.

She said: "I knew someone, they just said 'come here, find a job' and that's how I stayed here."

Ms Savicke described Boston, which became a hub for migrant workers from Eastern Europe settling in the UK during the early 2000s, as a "nice, pretty place to live".

Lilia was born at Pilgrim Hospital on 2 February 2013 and attended Boston Pioneers Academy.

Outside school, she took dance lessons and was a big Harry Potter fan.

On the day she was killed, Lilia and a friend had been happily playing with a hula hoop in the evening sun just outside her mother's shop.

But, shortly after 18:20 BST, the pair were approached by Skebas who, seemingly without reason, reached out and fatally stabbed Lilia once in the chest.

Ms Savicke remembers hearing Lilia call her name before she rushed into the street to see her daughter still clutching the hoop and, moments later, collapsing into her arms.

"I just heard 'Mum!'", she recalls.

"I went outside. I saw there was blood and she was with a hula hoop and the hula hoop was bent. I straight away said, 'Lilia what has happened?' I took the hula hoop and she was still standing. She fell into my hands. I started to shout for..."

As she speaks, her face creases and she cups it in her hands.

"I started to shout for help," she sobs.

"Ambulance, police are coming," she says. "They take me inside and I realise that she has gone, and they are not rushing or anything."

A jury in a trial of the facts at Lincoln Crown Court decided that Skebas, 23, of Thorold Street, Boston, did kill Lilia.

He was found unfit to plead due to his mental health. Skebas, originally from Lithuania, was given an indefinite hospital order, with the judge stating it was necessary to protect the public.

The Big Cases: The Killing in the Lane

BBC Look North reporter Jessica Lane travels to Lithuania to learn more about the man a jury determined killed nine-year-old Lilia Valutyte in a trial of the facts.

Watch now on BBC iPlayer (UK only)

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