THE FATAL MISTAKES THAT LET SCHOOLBOY KILL BAILEY
As teenager is found guilty of stabbing pupil to death...
THREE fatal mistakes allowed a teenager who carried a knife in his blazer pocket to stab a 16-year-old schoolboy to death. As the youth was yesterday found guilty of killing Bailey Gwynne, new details emerged of the missed opportunities to stop the terrible chain of events.
Bailey died from a single stab wound to the heart following a fight at Cults Academy in Aberdeen on October 28 last year.
His 16- year- old attacker, who cannot be i dentified f or l egal reasons, had denied murder but was convicted of culpable homicide at the High Court in Aberdeen. Last night, it emerged that:
Parents warned education chiefs about Bailey’s killer after he attacked a pupil with a rock while at primary school.
The killer managed easily to circumvent internet giant Amazon’s over-18s rule on buying knives by
having an illegal blade delivered to his mother’s garden shed.
When he was twice caught with a knife at school, the boy was only given a warning by the headteacher and no further disciplinary action was taken.
Last night, as Aberdeen City Council announced an independent review of the circumstances surrounding Bailey’s death, police said anyone discovering someone carrying a knife should always report the matter to them.
Detective Superintendent David McLaren, who led the investigation, said: ‘I think, taking this case aside, anyone who is finding anyone in possession of a knife should contact the police, I suggest.
‘It is a senseless decision to take a knife into a school setting. That has undoubtedly led to Bailey’s death.’
Aberdeen City Council refused to answer any questions on the boy’s previous knife incidents or on whether its existing policy towards knives in schools was robust enough.
Last night, details emerged of an incident in 2007 when the boy carried out an attack on a primary school pupil by hitting him with a rock.
The injured boy’s parents contacted police and the school, but although the incident was investigated, they became increasingly concerned about the lack of action and warned he could go on to commit a far more serious crime.
Yesterday, the jury of seven men and eight women reached their majority verdict on Bailey’s killer in under two hours after hearing evidence of how easily the accused had managed to obtain lethal weapons, including knives and knuckledusters, over the internet.
The court also heard from a friend of the accused who said that he had shown him a knife just a day or two before the fatal attack and ‘thought it was something cool to have’.
Jurors were told that the youth regularly carried a knife in his blazer pocket and was warned on two occasions not to bring bladed weapons onto school property, yet no further disciplinary action was taken.
When police came to arrest him, he told them it was ‘just a moment of anger’. He later told officers: ‘I didn’t mean to, but I stabbed him.’
The trial also heard that a laptop used by the teenager had revealed an internet search for ‘ how to get rid of someone annoying’.
The search term ‘ difference between a homicide and a murder’ was also noted, as was a web address relating to a YouTube video with the title: ‘14-year- old Bronx student stabs bully to death outside school’.
The accused betrayed no emotion as the guilty verdict was delivered, while the court was told that two families had been ‘destroyed’ by the killing.
Judge Lady Stacey deferred sentence to April 1 at the High Court in Edinburgh for background reports but warned Bailey’s killer to expect a custodial sentence.
Remanding him in custody, the judge said: ‘ You have been convicted of a very serious charge and two others. There are no winners in a case like this.’
There was audible sobbing from the public benches as defence counsel Ian Duguid, QC, told the court: ‘It really is no consolation for either side at the final outcome. There are t wo f amilies t hat have been destroyed by this case.’
Emotions had been running high throughout the five- day trial and witnesses dressed in school uniform broke down in tears as they revealed harrowing details of the tragic fight.
One, also aged 16, told the jury the accused had previously shown him a knuckleduster, but he was unable to say exactly when.
On the day of the killing, the witness said a group of boys had gathered close to the school toilets when an argument broke out after Bailey refused to give one of them a biscuit because he thought he was fat.
An argument then developed between Bailey and the accused, with the two calling each other names. In a police statement, the witness said the accused had said something like: ‘Your mum’s fat,’ to Bailey. The statement continued: ‘Then Bailey lashed out at him, grabbed hold of [the accused] and pushed him about.
‘[The accused] started to defend himself and they have started grappling.’
Mr Duguid put it to him: ‘ This started over a biscuit.’ The boy agreed.
He said the accused then ‘reached into his pocket and he pulled out a knife or some sort of sharp object’.
Asked what happened next, the witness said: ‘He thrust it towards Bailey. It went into Bailey.’
Mr Duguid told him the accused was around 5ft 8in or 5ft 9in and Bailey was 6ft 1in and 12 and a half stone and asked which of the two he would expect to win in a fight. The boy said: ‘Bailey.’
Even then, the court heard, Bailey and the accused continued to fight.
Computer science teacher Alasdair Sharp, 28, said he found the two teenagers involved in a tussle near the toilets and ordered them to stop.
The teacher told both to follow him to the school office. The three of them walked through a recreation area known as The Street but when they got to the end of it, Mr Sharp turned and saw Bailey staggering. He said: ‘Bailey was staggering towards the wall with his arm up, stumbling forward.’
The accused appeared to dab away tears as Mr Sharp said he thought he saw the other boy try to help him: ‘ At this point I noticed the blood going along The Street behind him. He became very pale and there was a lot of blood coming out of him.’
The trial heard from the school’s headteacher, Anna Muirhead, 57, who said she arrived on the scene moments after the stabbing. She said she found the accused ‘curled up’ on a seat and ‘obviously distraught or upset’.
She recalled she said the boy’s name and then ‘he indicated with his head and his hand, “That was me, that was my fault”.’ She said he was indicating towards Bailey, who was lying on the ground, ‘very, very pale’ with his shirt open and blood on his chest.
Miss Muirhead also told the jury she had previously emphasised to the accused boy that he must not take weapons into the school.
There were obvious reasons for the policy of banning knives, she said, adding: ‘Teenagers and young people can get het up, caught up in silly arguments. It’s all part and parcel of teenage life. And, of course, if you had a knife to hand, it could be a temptation.’
When Constable Christopher Masson arrived at the scene, he said the distraught boy asked him: ‘Is he dead? It was just a moment of anger.’
The court also heard that, minutes after he had stabbed Bailey, the boy wiped blood off his hands with at issue in t he deputy headteacher’s office.
The police officer said a colleague had handcuffed the boy and his pockets were searched. A sheath for a knife was found inside his right jacket pocket, he said.
PC Masson added that the boy told him, unprompted, where the knife now lay – inside a bin in one of the school corridors.
He later told police he bought the knuckledusters and a three-and-ahalf inch folding knife online from Amazon and regularly took them into the school as he thought they were ‘cool’.
In his closing speech to the jury, advocate depute Alex Prentice, QC, prosecuting, asked the jury to consider a question: ‘Why do you think
‘Just a moment of anger’ ‘That was me, that was my fault’
a young man would carry a knife and knuckledusters? Why on earth would you carry these things? They have no purpose other than to cause injury.’
He said that if the accused had not been carrying a knife on October 28, then the fight could have ended in ‘a few bruises and a fat lip’.
Instead, Bailey suffered a wound that the court heard was ‘unsurvivable’. Mr Prentice said: ‘Bailey stood no chance.’
At the end of the trial, it emerged that the accused had entered a plea of guilty to culpable homicide when he appeared in private at Aberdeen Sheriff Court two days after the fatal school stabbing.
However, the Crown rejected the plea in favour of pursuing a murder conviction.
The jury also found the accused guilty of having a knife and knuckl edusters i n the school between August 2014 and October 2015.
Mr Prentice said teachers had described Bailey as a ‘soft, caring boy’ and a ‘hardworking boy with a good attitude’. He lived with his mother Kate Gwynne, her partner John Henderson and his four younger brothers in Maryculter, Aberdeenshire.
The court heard he was doing well at school when his life was suddenly taken away from him in the violent incident that sent shock waves across Scotland.
Following the verdict, both families appeared visibly upset and left court without comment.
Gayle Gorman, director of education and children’s services at Aberdeen City Council, said: ‘There are no words which can sum up the emotional impact of what happened last year – and it is still hard to make any sense of Bailey’s death.
‘We should remember that at the heart of this were two children and there can be no greater tragedy than the untimely death of a young person.
‘Bailey Gwynne should never have died in this way. He was a 16-year-old boy with his whole life in front of him. We will not forget him.
‘The trial may have ended but for those involved, the process of moving forward now begins.
‘We will try and do that, while all the time remembering that Bailey was one of us.’
NO court case is more harrowing or emotional than one involving the death of a child.
The life of 16-year-old Bailey Gwynne was brought to a premature end in what should have been no more than a minor scuffle, which began over a biscuit and childish insults, during lunchtime at his school.
What transformed a trivial spat into a tragedy was the fact that the other 16-year-old boy involved had a knife. A single blow from its blade pierced Bailey’s heart and, although he initially did not appear badly hurt, his life was ebbing away. Valiant efforts were made to save him, but he was beyond help. With emotions running so high, the composure and dignity of Bailey’s parents in court has been astonishing.
A jury, having heard every scrap of evidence, decided that what occurred did not amount to murder and instead convicted the killer of the lesser charge of culpable homicide.
Now we must consider the wider implications, both of what occurred that day at Cults Academy, Aberdeen, last October, and what led up to the 30-second fight.
The killer – who cannot be identified for legal reasons – had previously hospitalised another child in an attack with a rock while still at primary school.
The family of the victim in that case involved police, their councillor and MP. Still they were not satisfied that sufficient action was taken and warned that the attacker still posed a risk.
How tragically prophetic their words proved.
The killer developed a fascination for knives and was cunning enough to order the fatal blade from the internet and have it delivered to his garden shed. That circumvented his parents’ involvement and the rudimentary age checks Amazon applies on orders for edged weapons. Evidence was heard that the boy was seen at school with the knife on as many as 25 occasions and that he also frequently carried knuckledusters.
Chillingly, the knife seems to have become a fixture in his blazer pocket. Most alarmingly, headteacher Anna Muirhead told the jury she had previously emphasised to the boy on more than one occasion that he must not bring weapons to school.
An inquiry into the events at Cults Academy has been announced. It will have to consider whether the response to the attack in primary school was sufficiently robust.
And it must look closely at what seem like missed opportunities to intervene. The school had, at the very least, suspicions that he was bringing in weapons.
One boy’s life has been ended by this case; another’s is in tatters as he faces a custodial sentence. Parents across Scotland have every right to demand every lesson – from the sale of knives to school policy on weapons – be wrung from this tragedy to ensure it is never repeated.