Schoolboy, 16, jailed for four-and-a-half years for stabbing teacher in head

A Welsh teenager has been sentenced to four-and-a-half years in youth detention for stabbing his history teacher in the head with a kitchen knife.

Pembrokeshire pupil sentenced after classroom knife attack on teacher

A 16-year-old boy has been sentenced to four-and-a-half years in youth detention after stabbing his history teacher in the head with an eight-inch kitchen knife at a school in Pembrokeshire, Daily Express reports.

Swansea Crown Court heard that the defendant — who was 15 at the time of the attack — approached teacher Vicki Williams at her desk on the afternoon of 5 February, asking her to check his homework. He had already planned the assault, prosecutors told the court, waiting until Williams was alone in her classroom after the school day had ended.

Williams told the jury that "alarm bells" began ringing when the boy shut the classroom door, claiming it was cold. He then produced a kitchen knife from his rucksack and struck her in the head. A violent struggle followed in which Williams attempted to take the weapon from him, before the teenager fled the school. CCTV footage shown to the jury captured him leaving the premises and later making his way to his grandmother's home, where he told her: "Something went in my head, nan."

Williams was taken to hospital in Haverfordwest, where she was found to have a wound to her scalp, scratches on her back, and minor cuts to her hands. She told the jury she believed she was dying during the attack.

'Pure luck she was not more seriously harmed'

The jury found the defendant guilty of wounding with intent, acquitting him of attempted murder. He had previously admitted to possessing the kitchen knife on school grounds; the judge imposed no separate penalty for that offence.

Passing sentence, Judge Paul Thomas KC said it was "pure luck" Williams had not been more seriously or fatally injured.

"I don't know why you attacked Mrs Williams with that knife, you never told anybody why you did it," the judge said. "What I do know for certain is that you took a knife that day to school because you wanted to really hurt her with it. You knew what you were going to do was very wrong, but you had planned it in advance."

Thomas KC noted the defendant had shown no remorse and said the courts had a duty to protect teachers from attacks by pupils. He added that the case was the second involving a school pupil stabbing a teacher in the same Welsh county within the past couple of years.

"I want anyone who is ever thinking in the future of doing the same to know what will happen to them if they do," he said. "They will spend a lot of their teenage years and perhaps beyond unable to go out with their friends, go on holidays, have fun, be with their parents, and do what the rest of their friends are doing."

Prosecution: a carefully planned attack

Christopher Rees KC, prosecuting, told the court the defendant had deliberately brought the knife to school intending to attack Williams, and that the assault had been carefully premeditated.

During the trial, the teenager offered a different account, telling the court that Williams had spotted the knife in his rucksack and "tried to grab it" from him, and that he had "accidentally assaulted her" in the struggle that followed.

Victim yet to return to work

In a victim impact statement, Williams described the months since the incident as an "emotional rollercoaster." She said she had not yet returned to work and did not believe she could resume her former role.

"The three main emotions I'm feeling are sadness, anger, and guilt. Sadness is the most predominant," she said. "All it would take is a pupil to ask for help, like he did, and I will freak out. I'm scared of being alone with the children in school."

Williams said she had no return-to-work plans in place and did not feel she could be the teacher she once was.

Matthew Roberts KC, defending, described the attack as "thoroughly out of character" for a teenager with no previous criminal record. He told the court the defendant had a supportive family who had attended proceedings almost daily, and that a caring home environment would be available upon his eventual release.

Source: Daily Express