A teenager has been jailed for a minimum of 16 years and 36 days for murdering his 12-year-old friend after luring him to woodland and attempting to decapitate him.

The 15-year-old boy, who can now be named as Marcel Grzeszcz, repeatedly stabbed Roberts Buncis on ground off Alcorn Green in Fishtoft, near Boston, Lincolnshire, on December 12 last year, just two days before his 13th birthday.

The teenager’s trial at Lincoln Crown Court was told he stabbed Roberts “in excess of 70 times”, with a wound to the neck that was “consistent with a decapitation attempt”.

Grzeszcz admitted manslaughter midway through his trial but denied murder.

The defendant claimed the victim had taken the knife to the scene and he “lost control” when the youngster attempted to stab him, but jurors dismissed his argument and concluded he was “motivated by anger”.

Sentencing the teenager on Monday, Mr Justice Jeremy Baker told him: “Marcel Grzeszcz, in the early hours of Saturday 12 December 2020, you lured Roberts Buncis to a wooded area of Boston where you carried out a savage and brutal attack upon him with a knife which you had brought to the scene, in the course of which you made a determined effort to remove his head, before leaving his body for others to find later that same morning.

“Although it is less easy to discern the precise motive for your actions that night, if indeed they extended beyond the excitement which the infliction of violence had caused you to experience in the past, it would appear that you viewed the deceased as something of a liability.

“There was a significant degree of planning and premeditation, including luring the deceased to the scene and taking the knife with you when you met up with him.

“When the two of you met up in the wooded area, I’m satisfied while the deceased was unarmed and unaware of what was to take place, you came armed with a large knife and with latex gloves intending at that time, at the very least, to cause him serious bodily harm.

“I should make clear that, although when you commenced the attack upon the deceased you may not have intended to kill him, as opposed to intending him to suffer really serious bodily injury, I am sure that as the attack progressed, given the number and nature of the injuries which you inflicted upon the deceased, there came a time when you did intend to kill him and proceeded to do so.”

The judge lifted a reporting restriction barring the naming of Grzeszcz following an application by the PA news agency.

The trial previously heard that Grzeszcz was forced to leave St Nicholas Primary after bring a knife on to the premises, and was sent to a pupil referral unit.

The defendant then moved to Haven High Academy, where he stayed for around three years, but was excluded for selling drugs both in and out of school.

Grzeszcz was then sent to a pupil referral unit where he started the day before Roberts was found dead.

There was a significant degree of planning and premeditation, including luring the deceased to the scene and taking the knife with you when you met up with him

Giving his ruling on the decision to lift the anonymity order, Mr Justice Jeremy Baker said: “In these circumstances I am satisfied that having carefully balanced the competing considerations articulated on behalf of the press and the accused, for the reasons I have set out the balance is strongly in favour of the principle of open justice… rather than the accused’s welfare, which is of more limited significance in the context of this extremely serious case.

“I am satisfied that not only is it in the interests of justice to dispense with the current anonymity order… but that the effect of continuing the order would be to impose a substantial and unreasonable restriction on the reporting of the proceedings at this stage and that it is in the public interest to remove the restriction.”

In submissions made to the court by the prosecutor, Mary Loram QC, the judge was told the attack was “more than a simple stabbing”.

Ms Loram said: “This was a deliberate and planned attack on a young boy who was deceived to get to the place where he was killed.”

In a short victim impact statement read to the court on behalf of Roberts’s father, Edgars Buncis, he said: “How do I put into words how I feel?

“This is all wrong. No father should ever have to bury their son.

“Nothing is a reason for this. I have lost my destination and my purpose.

“My life is in a cemetery. I feel empty and nothing will change this.”