#11: The Kill Code - A Bloody Attack Planned in a Chatroom

Full Episode Transcript

It was a Sunday in June of 2003, an unusually hot day. I met up with my best friend at the mall. We’d been chatting online for a while, and he’d asked if I wanted to hang out. Nothing seemed strange. It was just two friends spending the day together. We walked around, grabbed something to eat, and at one point, he said he needed to pick up a knife for his mum or something. I didn’t think much of it—he even asked me to help him choose one, so I picked out a kitchen knife from a store. He paid for it, and we moved on like it was nothing.

As the afternoon wore on, we wandered around town. He seemed a bit quiet at times, maybe off, like he wasn’t feeling great, but he didn’t say much. At one point, he hinted that he might have to do something that day, but I thought he was talking about something awkward or embarrassing—maybe family stuff or something online.

We ended up walking toward a wooded area. It was calm, and I thought maybe we were just finding somewhere to sit and chill. But once we were alone, he suddenly said something about having to stab me. I laughed at first. It didn’t make sense—who says that? But then he started to panic, mumbling about going too far into the woods and missing some kind of signal. It was like he wasn’t even making sense anymore. He insisted we go back into town.

Eventually, we ended up in a quiet alley. It was tucked away behind shops, dead silent. I didn’t think anything of it until he pulled out the knife. He looked at me and said, “You have to let me do it.” I thought he was joking—some twisted joke, maybe—but then he said I was his best friend and just stabbed me in the chest. No warning. No lead-up. Just pain. I dropped instantly, couldn’t believe it was real. I begged him to stop, screaming for help, asking him to call an ambulance. I told him I was dying. And all he did was whisper at me to be quiet.

I told him, “You’ve killed me!” and he told me not to say that. He looked panicked, like he didn’t even know what he was doing. Then he pulled me back up and whispered, “Trust me.” He held the knife to my stomach and stabbed me again. He said he wasn’t in control, like it wasn’t him. But it was him. It was my friend.

I collapsed again. He just sat there with me while I bled out. He didn’t call for help, said someone he knew was coming. I didn’t know who that was. Nobody came. Eventually, he made the call himself—told the police I’d been stabbed by someone else. But it was him. He stabbed me. Out of nowhere. No fight. No warning. Nothing to make it make sense.

Mark, a sixteen-year-old from Stockport, had his parents acquire him a computer in 2002, ostensibly to aid with his schoolwork. He was an only child of working-class parents, described as well-mannered and respectful, with a good upbringing. Though his grades were merely passable, and his aspirations lay with a local business college rather than academia, Mark was well-liked by teachers and peers, stayed out of trouble, and was passionate about sports, particularly soccer. Tall and fair-haired with a strong build, Mark was popular with girls at school but found interacting with them challenging. In 2002, his parents purchased a computer for him with the intention of assisting with his schoolwork. The Vanity Fair article described Mark as having a bland appearance with a vast forehead, a tendency to begin sentences with "Ermmm," and possessing, it was later claimed, an almost infinite store of credulity.

The internet, becoming increasingly accessible and affordable in UK homes around this time, offered a new avenue for connection. MSN chat, with its browser-based interface and anonymity through nicknames, was a popular destination. Mark joined a Manchester teens chat room, primarily hoping to meet girls. He spent considerable time online, initially observing conversations before gaining the confidence to participate.

One day, a profile caught his attention in the Manchester teens chat. A sixteen-year-old girl named Rachel West, claiming to be from Manchester and working at a local gym, posted an introductory message. She had a profile picture, described as promising. Mark, finding her attractive, sent a private message, and they connected immediately. Their conversations flowed effortlessly, lasting all night initially and continuing over the following days. Mark was surprised and thrilled by the attention from this girl he considered "perfect" and "out of his league". Their online relationship deepened, turning flirtatious and later, sexual in tone.

Mark genuinely believed he was falling in love with Rachel.

Their burgeoning online romance included interactions via webcam. While Mark would turn on his camera, sometimes at Rachel's request for sexual activity, which he would comply with, Rachel herself never used her webcam. She explained this was due to negative online experiences she had encountered in the past. Despite this one-sided webcamming, their bond strengthened, conducted through whispered chats, personal emails, and lengthy conversations late into the night. Mark declared his love for Rachel in an online interaction, and she reciprocated, stating "I love you too". They were increasingly making plans to transition their online relationship into a real-world meeting, with Mark willing to skip school to accommodate her reportedly busy schedule.

A few days into Mark's intense relationship with Rachel, a fourteen-year-old user named John joined the Manchester teens chat room. Rachel introduced John as her stepbrother. According to Rachel, John came from a well-off family residing in an affluent Manchester suburb, although Mark did not live close enough to encounter them in person. John was presented as a student at a private grammar school, described as gentle, polite, and well-mannered, albeit withdrawn. Mark and John quickly developed a strong friendship, bonding over shared interests such as football, girls, and the movie "Catch Me If You Can," which they both enjoyed. They would use webcams together during their interactions, fostering a sense of being in the same space despite the physical distance. Mark came to consider John his best friend, and John became an integral part of the online interactions Mark shared with Rachel, forming what Mark perceived as a "tight trio" with their own inside jokes and special language.

John was a bright student attending grammar school and was expected to go to university. However, John felt lonely and confused. He had reportedly fallen out with both his school friends and his stepfather. His home life presented challenges; according to his mother, his biological father, whom he had no recollection of, had abducted him as a baby and had physically and sexually abused her. When John was seven, the man he believed to be his father at the time, described by John as "bad on drugs," also left, plunging his mother into depression and leaving John without a stable father figure. He felt a profound sense of isolation. This difficult family history contributed to a sense of being unlovable. John found a book at age four that revealed his mother's live-in partner was not his biological father, learning this truth through discovering his birth date listed next to a different last name. When his mother began a relationship with a plumber in 2001, John felt out of sorts with them and suspected they were talking about him, sometimes listening at their door. He was certain that strangers were always talking about him too, sometimes calling him "Paki" and "terrorist".

John was characterized as a gentle, slightly withdrawn boy, who despite his introversion, held dreams of becoming a barrister. He was a gifted fabricator and inventor, with the determination and industry to spend hours typing out his creations. At school, John's geography teacher observed a change in him, noting he would become withdrawn and read books about mental illness rather than socializing with friends. His mother also recognized that he was becoming secretive and snappish, agreeing that his behavior had become very strange. John had a precise and rigid routine for washing and dressing, and required objects in his bedroom, like toiletries and desk items, to be arranged in neat, parallel lines. Attempts to deviate from this routine caused significant anxiety. John had been given a laptop by his mother at age thirteen, intended to help with schoolwork like Mark, which led him to become a habitué of the internet. By February 2003, he was contacting dozens of people nightly in chat rooms, spending upwards of twelve hours a day online, sometimes skipping meals and sleep. He felt trapped in this virtual world.

Mark and John, despite the age difference, quickly bonded. They shared interests in gaming, girls, and football. Their webcam hangouts facilitated a sense of being in the same room, and their conversations often touched upon explicit topics common among teenage boys. John became Mark's best friend. However, Mark remained primarily focused on Rachel, even telling John he was falling in love with her. This intense attachment to Rachel, reportedly stirred complex emotions in John, including a shade of contempt alongside love.

The dynamics within the chat room began to shift with the arrival of a new user who identified himself as Kevin McGregor. Kevin presented himself as a self-proclaimed stalker. Initially, his presence seemed merely strange, but his claims became increasingly unsettling as he began to focus his attention on Rachel and John, demonstrating knowledge of their personal details that suggested his claims of monitoring them were genuine. Mark became convinced that Kevin represented a real and credible threat to Rachel and John. The fear escalated significantly when Kevin issued disturbing demands directly to Mark. Kevin threatened to kidnap, rape, and murder Rachel unless Mark complied with his instructions to show his feet and masturbate on webcam for him. Feeling that complying with these demands was the only way to ensure Rachel's safety, Mark followed Kevin's orders. He conveyed Kevin's threat to Rachel in a private message, asking her "What else can i do?". Rachel, touched by his willingness to comply, replied, "You don’t have to do anything for me," but Mark insisted, stating, "I do, Rach. I love you". Their conversation concluded with Rachel reaffirming, "I love you too". Mark went through with the "humiliating task" as demanded by Kevin, believing that doing so had saved Rachel from danger. This ordeal seemed to strengthen the connection between Mark and Rachel.

Following this incident, Mark and Rachel revisited their plans to meet in the real world. Their introduction was arranged to take place in Altrincham, a town located about forty minutes away from Mark's home by bus. Mark took the journey to the designated meeting point in Altrincham and waited. He waited for hours, filled with nervous excitement, but Rachel never arrived. There was no sign of her.

Upon returning home after being stood up, Mark immediately went online to check his computer, hoping to find a message from Rachel explaining her absence. He found no emails or private messages from her, and she was not present in their usual chat room. However, there was an email message waiting for him from Kevin McGregor. The message delivered devastating news; Kevin claimed he had followed through with his threats, stating that he had gang-raped and murdered Rachel. Kevin reportedly provided gruesome details of her supposed final moments, writing that he "kicked all her stomach. put her head under water. Then out. Freezing cold…. And she stained my sheets when she was bleeding!". Kevin further taunted Mark about his inability to protect Rachel, stating, "you weren’t there for her. However much she screamed for you". Mark, bewildered and heartbroken, responded to Kevin's message, asking, "How could I have been there when i didnt know where she was".

The apparent death of Rachel deeply impacted Mark. He later described his reaction to the news about his "girlfriend" as feeling "Angry and upset". This period was marked by significant emotional distress for Mark; he experienced depression and withdrawal, and his school grades, which were already average, dropped to C's and F's. He withdrew from his real-life friends, becoming increasingly isolated in the aftermath. John, who also seemed to grieve the loss of his 'sister', and Mark found increasing solace and support in their friendship during this profoundly difficult and confusing time. Feeling unable to confide in the police or his parents, Mark privately mourned the tragic loss of his online girlfriend.

During this period, Mark and John's real-life friendship deepened. They found solace in each other's company, both affected by the loss of Rachel. Despite John's concern about Mark's withdrawal, Mark dismissed it as tiredness, but John noticed Mark's mood lift when he acknowledged their friendship. Mark, still seeking connection, began talking to other girls online. A new character, an older teenager named Lyndsey East, entered the Manchester teens chat. Mark developed feelings for her, and she reciprocated, leading him to perform sexual acts for her on webcam, just as he had for Rachel. Lyndsey confided in Mark that she was a junior Secret Service agent for MI6 and that she had joined the chat room to monitor John because he was under government protection due to the threat posed by Kevin. Lyndsey urged Mark to help her track down Kevin but stressed the importance of John remaining unaware of the situation.

Just days after her revelation, Mark received an email from Lyndsey, which she had apparently pre-written for delivery in the event of her death. The email stated she had been killed in the line of duty and urged Mark to complete her mission to protect John at all costs. Shortly after Lyndsey's apparent death, Rachel West reappeared in the chat room. Mark was initially overjoyed but found her story confusing; she claimed to have been in a coma and given birth to his baby during that time, despite them never having met in person and her having been gone only for a few weeks. Before Mark could make sense of these unbelievable claims, Rachel vanished again.

The next character to enter Mark's increasingly bizarre online world was Janet Dobinson. She presented herself as a forty-four-year-old woman who found teenage chat tiresome and wrote exclusively in capital letters. Janet described a mundane life as an estate agent with two children and an unhappy marriage to an "ogre". However, this was merely a cover for her true identity as a senior MI6 agent, holding the third most powerful position in the British Secret Service. Janet told Mark that she had specifically sought him out in the chat room to recruit him into MI6. She explained that he was being tested and, if he proved worthy, he would be well compensated with millions of pounds, a license to kill, and opportunities to meet prominent figures like Queen Elizabeth and Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Mark initially regarded Janet's claims with skepticism, finding them stupid, but his curiosity led him to continue the conversations. As they spoke at length, Janet's detailed explanations and seeming knowledge of his life, including mentioning that other agents (like teachers, bus drivers, and shopkeepers) were monitoring him, gradually convinced Mark that her story was real. He came to believe he was genuinely being recruited by the British Secret Service. He even expressed nervousness about meeting the Queen.

Janet began assigning Mark "tests" to prove his readiness for the Secret Service. One involved getting John out of school, framed as a mission to protect John because he was the nation's single most important person, a national asset worth £568 billion, holding the code to a massive safe filled with the world's richest jewels at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Only John could "walk through the door" to access the safe. Mark was instructed to convince John it was merely a day of skipping school with a friend, as he was acting as a covert bodyguard. Mark followed the instructions, taking John out of school under the pretense of a dentist appointment, which raised concerns with John's mother, who discovered the online conversations. Following this, both boys' parents became aware of the online activity, specifically the contact with "Janet Dobinson," and initially banned further communication and confiscated their computers.

However, the boys circumvented the restrictions and resumed their online communication, including with Janet, who was now posing as an air hostess. Janet presented Mark with a new, urgent mission, supposedly handed down directly from the Prime Minister. This task, a matter of national security with Janet's job and potentially life on the line, was to make John appear gay by performing oral sex on him. Mark was reluctant but felt compelled by the perceived national security implications and the potential rewards. He complied during a sleepover at John's house, engaging in oral sex and watching pornography with him.

After this mission, Janet posed a critical question to Mark: "Could you kill someone close to you? You might be tested on that later on". Mark's initial hesitation, "Erm … I dunno…. I probably would but i wanna know why…. I haven’t really thought about it," was met with a firm "Well, think please". He then responded, "Yeah i could. There’s my answer". Janet then revealed the next stage of the plan: John was suffering from a slow-growing, terminal brain tumor, and killing him would be an act of mercy and necessary for national security, presumably to access the safe's contents before his condition worsened. Mark was told that taking John's life was not murder in this context. Further cementing this belief, John sent Mark a message confirming he had received a letter from his doctor about a "brain thingy tumour". This seemingly confirmed Janet's information and strengthened Mark's resolve.

The mission details were then meticulously planned with Janet. Mark was instructed to take John to a quiet place, acquire a knife and gloves (even specifying where, "Boots," a pharmacy chain that sold such items). He was told to say, "Love you bro" or "Trust me" to John as he delivered the fatal blow. Janet also instructed him not to call an ambulance immediately after the act, waiting instead for her to arrive disguised as a detective superintendent to ensure he would not be arrested. An abort code, 6969, was established, which, if heard, would signal the immediate cancellation of the mission.

—

On Sunday, June 29, 2003, Mark and John met in Altrincham, Greater Manchester on a very hot day. They met initially at the Trafford shopping centre. According to instructions received online, Mark casually told John that he needed to pick up a knife. Mark withdrew money from a cash machine, and they went into a shop. Mark instructed John to select a knife. John chose a six-inch Sabatier kitchen knife, a type used for slicing through thick cuts of meat. Mark paid for the knife and ark later told police that letting John select the knife would somehow make John's death easier for him.

As the day wore on, Mark reportedly began to feel sick and dizzy. He was having disturbing visions of what he was about to do, which was to stab his friend to death. At one point, the boys sat down for a rest. Mark attempted to convey his feelings to John, saying that he "might have to do something" that day. They had spent about eight hours together before Mark felt he needed to complete his mission. Mark remained on constant alert throughout the day, nervously scanning those around them, presuming they could be fellow undercover agents tracking his progress. However, the abort code never sounded for Mark.

The boys then walked to a secluded wooded area nearby. Once there, Mark told John he would have to stab him. Mark reportedly began to panic, realizing he might not be able to hear the abort code if they went too far into the isolated woods. They returned to town, heading towards the fashionable Goose Green area. A deserted dead-end alleyway, situated behind a row of shops and restaurants, presented itself as a suitable location. This alleyway was cut off by a 40-foot drop. It was quiet enough that nobody else was likely to come by, but close enough to civilization for Mark to potentially hear the abort code if it was announced.

As the teenagers entered the alleyway, Mark pulled out the knife and held it close to John's body, saying, "You have to let me do it". According to instructions he received online, Mark told John he was his best friend. He then plunged the knife into John's chest. John immediately crumpled to the ground, shouting at Mark to stop and screaming in pain. He cried out, "Call an ambulance!" and "I'm dying!". Mark tried to get the younger boy to calm down and be quiet so as not to attract attention, whispering, "Shush…. People will hear, please be quiet". John then screamed, "You've killed me!" to which Mark begged, "Don't say that," and "Don't let that be the last thing you are saying". Mark hugged John as he did it because he reportedly did not want to hurt him.

Realizing that one stab wound was not enough, Mark grabbed John and pulled him back to his feet. He whispered, "Trust me," holding the knife to John's stomach. Mark reported later that he had not felt in control at that point, but, determined to complete his secret mission, he plunged the knife once more into John's body. This second wound was to the abdomen. He then lowered his friend back to the ground and sat with him for approximately 20 minutes after the stabbing. He had been ordered not to call an ambulance straight away and was told to remain put until 'Janet Dobinson' arrived disguised as a detective who would ensure he wasn't arrested. There was no sign of 'Janet Dobinson'. Mark decided to call emergency services himself. Shortly before 8 pm on June 29, 2003, Mark called the police. He told them that his best friend had been stabbed by an unknown attacker in a deserted alley.

The initial response to the stabbing in the alleyway in Altrincham on that hot June day in 2003 was one of a seemingly random, unprovoked attack by an unknown assailant. Police appealed for witnesses and launched a manhunt for a described attacker. However, this narrative was quickly challenged by the evidence gathered from the scene. CCTV footage from a camera positioned at the base of the alley captured the only individuals who entered the secluded area that evening: Mark and John. The camera followed the boys as they disappeared into the alley, and when Mark re-emerged approximately 25 minutes later to call emergency services, he was alone. There was no hooded figure, no third party involved. The immediate realization for the authorities was that the assailant could only have been the person John was with in that alleyway – Mark.

Mark, the 16-year-old who had made the emergency call, initially maintained that his best friend had been attacked by a stranger. He even provided a false but detailed description of the attacker. However, once investigators, led by Detective Chief Inspector Julian Ross, were able to review the CCTV footage, they confronted Mark. Under questioning, he confessed to stabbing John, but claimed he did so because he had "heard voices". He stopped short of revealing the elaborate Secret Service plot he believed himself to be a part of, reportedly fearing that divulging this highly confidential information to local police would put him in trouble with MI6. He remained confident that the character he knew as Special Agent Janet Dobinson would arrive at any moment to secure his release.

John was rushed to Wythenshawe Hospital, in critical condition.

He suffered two severe stab wounds. One was a "light wound" in the chest, and the other was a six-inch deep wound to the abdomen. This wound pierced his kidney and liver and necessitated the removal of his gallbladder.

During emergency treatment and surgery, John almost died on the operating table. His heart stopped twice while on the operating table. Blood pooled inside his body cavity, which restricted the movement of his diaphragm and stopped the functioning of his lungs. For days after the surgery, he lay on a respirator to assist his breathing. He was treated with painkillers and antibiotics.

Following emergency treatment, John survived the attack. He remained in Wythenshawe Hospital for over a week. After successful surgery, he was transferred to Pendlebury Children's Hospital, where he was in a critical but stable condition and was also questioned by police. Initially, he too denied that Mark was the person who stabbed him. It was only when investigators presented him with the irrefutable CCTV footage from the alleyway, which showed only the two boys entering the secluded area, that John eventually broke down and admitted Mark was his assailant. According to the Vanity Fair article by journalist Judy Bachrach, this admission was reluctant and came after he had changed his story multiple times.

The case, initially treated as a random stabbing, evolved dramatically when Mark, after waiting a month in juvenile detention for Janet Dobinson to appear and secure his release, finally confessed the full, bizarre narrative. He told police he had been recruited via an internet chat room by a British Secret Service agent named Dobinson, who had ordered him to kill John as a mission. Mark's detailed account of secret missions, promised rewards, and code words seemed incredible to the detectives.

To unravel this extraordinary story, criminal intelligence analyst Sally Hogg was brought in. The investigation team seized computers belonging to both boys and undertook a massive digital forensic examination. They extracted an immense volume of data, described as 58,000 lines of disjointed chat room conversations and 133 gigabytes of data from Mark and John’s laptops. This amount of data, according to Sally Hogg speaking in the Vanity Fair article, if converted to paper, would stack 46,000 feet high.

Initially, the sheer volume and complexity of the online interactions puzzled investigators. Finding intimate webcam footage Mark had sent to various contacts led detectives to initially suspect that Mark and John might be victims of a pedophile ring operating online. Sally Hogg began the painstaking process of examining the 193 separate email addresses Mark had been in contact with. She focused on the six core chatroom users central to the unfolding narrative: Rachel, John (Rachel's stepbrother), Kevin, Lyndsey East, and Janet Dobinson, along with Mark himself. Each of these online personas had a seemingly unique style of conversation, distinct mannerisms, and their own wild backgrounds. Sally Hogg herself initially believed they were distinct individuals, stating in the Vanity Fair article, "Each style of conversation was totally different—I really believed it".

The breakthrough came through linguistic analysis. As Sally Hogg sifted through the thousands of lines of text, she noticed a specific, repeated spelling error. A certain word was consistently misspelled across multiple online characters. That word was "maybe," which was written as "m-y-b-y-e". This specific stylistic variation was used by five of the six main characters Mark had been interacting with, including John, Kevin, Dobinson, and Lyndsey. Hogg concluded this was not a random error but a deliberate, shared unique trait that was "near impossible that five separate individuals had made the same writing error". This strongly indicated that these seemingly distinct internet characters were, in fact, the creation of a single person.

The next step was to identify who this person was. Investigators noted that the precise details of the June 29 stabbing had appeared on the MSN chat-room site right up until one day before the crime. Computer experts analyzing John's laptop made a critical discovery. Records showed that someone had logged onto John’s computer using Janet Dobinson's username and password. By cross-referencing the times Janet Dobinson was active online with who was at John's home at those exact moments, particularly on the night before the attack when the final murderous plans were discussed, police pinpointed the user. The only person present and able to access the computer at the time was John himself. This digital evidence, combined with the shared linguistic quirk across multiple characters, definitively linked John to the creation and control of the Janet Dobinson persona and the others. As Detective Chief Inspector Ross stated in the Vanity Fair article, "The penny clicked—and I won't forget it—when we said, 'All right. Let's just go over again where Janet Dobinson's been.' We finally saw that the last person to use the laptop at John's house [before the stabbing] was Janet Dobinson".

Confronted with this undeniable evidence gathered through digital forensics and linguistic analysis, John broke down and admitted to everything. He confessed to creating the complex web of imaginary characters and orchestrating the entire plot, including his own attempted murder. He explained that invention online felt easy, like "the equivalent of taking heroin", and that Mark's gullibility made feeding him stories as simple as "feeding a dog". John revealed his motive stemmed from profound loneliness, feelings of being unlovable, bullying at school, and feeling disconnected from his family. He felt trapped in his life and his own lies, and the internet offered a world where he could feel in control and wield power. Mark had become the most important person in his life, and fearing he would lose this friendship if the truth about his online personas was revealed, John devised the ultimate plan for suicide, wanting the last words he heard to be Mark saying he loved him.

—

This was the first case in British law courts of one person inciting another to kill them.

The trial commenced on Friday, May 28, 2004, at Manchester Crown Court. This was the first time Mark and John had seen each other in the eleven months since the stabbing. Mark, who had spent eight months in a juvenile detention center on remand awaiting trial and had reportedly become more muscular from working out there, appeared dressed neatly. John, who had been seeing a psychologist and making progress, sat hunched over and crying. The boys did not make eye contact.

During the trial, prosecutor Nicholas Clarke presented the full, convoluted, and bizarre story. It was described as an "Internet soap opera moving from one scene to another, each character and story line more fantastic than the last". This was the first time Mark heard the complete extent of John's intricate deception. As the prosecutor detailed how John had used a stream of imaginary characters – Rachel West, Kevin McGregor, Lyndsey East, Janet Dobinson, among others – to manipulate Mark into carrying out the attack, Mark was visibly "aghast". The realization that Rachel, the girl he had loved, wooed, and genuinely mourned, was John; that Kevin, who had ordered humiliating acts on webcam and described Rachel's death, was John; that Lyndsey East and Janet Dobinson, with their wild stories and demands, were also John; that the entire online world he had believed in was a fabrication created by his best friend, unfolded before him in court. Reportedly, Mark stated, "I've been a fool".

Facing the evidence and the full revelation of the scheme, both boys pleaded guilty. Mark pleaded guilty to attempted murder. John pleaded guilty to inciting murder and perverting the course of justice. Prosecutor Nicholas Clarke, commenting later, stated that of the two, John was "the more wicked and more criminally culpable". John's defense lawyer, Jonathan Goldberg, however, compared the story to Romeo and Juliet and praised John's "extraordinarily persuasive, inventive" abilities.

Judge David Maddison, in sentencing, called the case "extraordinary" and "staggering". He remarked that "Skilled writers of fiction would struggle to conjure up a plot such as arises here". Judge Maddison acknowledged John's abilities as a "gifted fabricator" with "phenomenal" continuity and memory. He described Mark as "gullible for his age" and John as "sophisticated beyond his years". Judge Maddison had considerable sympathy for Mark, stating he accepted that "fantastic though it seems when looked at now in the cold light of day that such a plot was presented to you so convincingly with the characters presented that you really did believe that you had been recruited by the Secret Service to kill your co-accused and face the consequences if you did not do so".

Despite the severity of the charges, which would normally warrant severe penalties including prison time, Judge Maddison handed down non-custodial sentences, stating this was not a normal case. He concluded that each boy was, in a sense, a victim of the other. John received a three-year supervision order and was banned from using internet chat rooms and from accessing the internet without adult supervision. In what was noted as another legal first, he was banned from all online chat rooms. Mark received a two-year supervision order. Both boys were banned from having any further contact with one another. As the sentence was delivered, Mark reportedly winked at his mother, while Sally Hogg, the analyst whose work helped uncover the truth, reportedly wept for Mark, the "duller, more susceptible boy".