A TEENAGER who killed a seven-year-old girl in a park has been ordered to be detained for assessment in a specialist hospital by a judge who told her she poses "a high risk of serious harm to others and to yourself".

The 16-year-old girl sobbed at Leeds Crown Court where she appeared via video-link on Thursday to be sentenced for the manslaughter of Katie Rough in York.

Katie was found with severe lacerations to her neck and chest on a playing field in January and did not respond to frantic attempts to revive her.

But a judge heard earlier this year she actually died from being smothered by her attacker, who cannot be named for legal reasons.

Today, Mr Justice Soole told the defendant she would be detained in hospital for 12 weeks before she is returned to court for further sentencing to take place on November 24.

The judge told her: "All sentencing options will be open when, at its conclusion, I make my final decision."

He said: "It is not in dispute that you currently pose a high risk of serious harm to others and to yourself."

The girl, wearing glasses and dressed in casual clothes, sat with a lawyer listening to her clinical diagnoses being discussed.

But, as the judge addressed her, she bent forward and began crying loudly.

Earlier this year, the court heard the teenager was found standing in a cul-de-sac in a York suburb, covered in blood and carrying a blood-stained Stanley knife as she rang 999 to tell police what she had done.

The girl denied murder but pleaded guilty to manslaughter by diminished responsibility at the hearing in July.

The judge was told she may have been trying to prove Katie was not a robot as she had "irrational beliefs" and may have been suffering from mental health problems more than a year before the killing. She had reported delusional thoughts as well as depression, self-harm and suicidal thoughts.

The court heard that, although psychosis was being investigated prior to the killing, it had not been diagnosed

Nicholas Johnson QC, defending, said the teenager had thoughts that people around her "may not be human and may be controlled by a higher and hostile force".

The barrister said his client had posted a picture on social media two days before the killing with a concerning message.

He said: "She was clearly crying out for help and support."

Today, the judge told the defendant that three consultants in adolescent forensic psychiatry had now assessed her in this "most disturbing case", despite the girl's "very limited engagement with them".

The judge said two of the three specialists agreed that the teenager suffers from a mental disorder of a kind which enables him to make an interim hospital order, which was enough for him to proceed.

He said the third doctor "does not agree with his colleagues' classification of it as a depressive disorder, nor their opinion that the disorder is such that a hospital order may be appropriate".

The judge told the girl he was making the hospital order "in order to try and obtain the fullest picture of your mental condition and its prospects of treatment before making my final decision as to the appropriate sentence in your case".