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A teenage boy posed as a spy in an internet chatroom to persuade a friend to kill him in an "extraordinary suicide attempt", a court heard.

The boy, 14 at the time, groomed his friend, then 16, with an "elaborate matrix of deceit" involving a series of fictional identities in the chatroom. The older boy, boy A, tried to kill his friend, boy B, on the orders of the "spy", Manchester Crown Court heard.

Boy A pleaded guilty to attempted murder and boy B pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice and incitement to murder.

Boy A was given a two-year supervision order and banned from any contact with boy B.

Boy B was given a three-year supervision order, banned from any contact with boy A and was told he must only access the internet under adult supervision and must not enter chatrooms under any circumstances.

Boy A, the older one, believed that by stabbing boy B he would be recruited as a British secret service agent and would be rewarded with a sexual relationship with the spy, a middle-aged woman.

But, in reality, boy B had fallen in love with boy A, tricked him into performing sex acts on a webcam and conned him into stabbing him twice in Altrincham, Greater Manchester.

Posing as the spy and promising sex and money, boy B sent messages to boy A ordering him to stab his friend to death.

The following day, June 29, 2003, boy A "carried out his orders to the letter" and stabbed boy B once in the chest and once in the stomach.

But boy B did not die and spent a week in Wythenshawe Hospital in Manchester before recovering.

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