Seven-year sentence for school stab attack girl

A 16-year-old girl who stabbed a school welfare officer, leaving her seriously injured, has been given a seven-year custodial sentence by a judge who said she would probably have killed her victim if she had not been restrained.

Elisha Burkill attacked Joy Simon, 61, an inclusion support officer, in an office at Winterton Community Academy, near Scunthorpe, in September last year.

Judge Jeremy Richardson QC, sitting at Hull Crown Court, told the teenager: “I have no doubt that if you had not been restrained ... you would have, in all likelihood, killed Mrs Simon. You very nearly did.”