MAKING OF A KILLER
The plump and unassuming teenager who thought blades made him cool
IN the photograph police took after bringing the boy into custody, he could be taken for as young as 12 or 13. His white shirt hung loose over his plump torso, his black, shapeless trousers were too long for him and his hair was a boyish mop.
In his eyes, there was a look of abject terror. If there were intimidating teenagers at schools, then this 16-year- old certainly did not look like one of them.
On the contrary, the overweight, underachieving youngster had, on occasion, himself felt intimidated by his peers. He had not done PE for a month because he feared being mocked for his ‘breasts’ when he undressed. He palled around with another plump boy as if for mutual support.
Yet the quiet, unassuming youngster who appeared to scare nobody was responsible for one of the most horrifying crimes ever perpetrated in Scotland by one school pupil on another. And his violent, unpredictable behaviour had caused concern for years.
As long ago as 2007, the then seven-yearold had attacked another primary school pupil with rocks in a lane. The victim was taken to hospital and his alarmed parents contacted police and the school. Chillingly,
‘A bout of puerile name-calling’
they predicted their son’s attacker would one day commit an even more violent crime. The events of October 28 last year proved them right.
It was at lunchtime that day that the boy removed his £40 folding knife from his blazer pocket and plunged it into the heart of Bailey Gwynne. A bout of puerile name-calling had rapidly escalated into violence and, as the boy was overpowered by Bailey, he reached for the weapon that would turn a brief scrap into a notorious killing.
As advocate depute Alex Prentice, QC, told the jury at the High Court in Aberdeen yesterday: ‘If he had not been carrying a knife the outcome of the conflict would have been a few bruises and perhaps a fat lip.’
Instead, the outcome was the senseless death of a healthy, happy teenager. Incredibly, a silly row over who would be given one of Bailey’s biscuits resulted in the 5th-year pupil lying fatally wounded in a corridor.
That knife in the pocket of the baited schoolboy was the difference between tomfoolery and tragedy.
Why, then, did he have a knife at school? And how was it possible for him to keep weapons in his blazer at all times without being challenged by teachers or parents?
It became abundantly clear over the course of the trial last week that the boy had a deeply unhealthy fascination with knives. But what was never mentioned was that, even in primary school, there was something about him that greatly disturbed other parents.
The family of the boy attacked with rocks took their complaint to a local councillor, Marie Boulton, who in turn pressed senior education officials in Aberdeen for action. Even the authority’s chief executive was informed of concerns about the boy. Miss Boulton said: ‘I passed it to senior staff who carried out an investigation of sorts.
‘This went on for a number of years and the concerns were continually being raised and I kept raising them with council officials.’
The family also approached Dame Anne Begg, then the Aberdeen South MP, for help. She said: ‘There was nobody who had official oversight over everything that was going on who could say “actually, we are trying all these different things but actually there is still a problem here, there is still an issue here”.
‘The couple who approached me still weren’t satisfied that their children were going to be safe going to school, that the attack that had happened once wouldn’t happen again.’
And yet, it appears, the boy’s schooling continued uninterrupted. At home he would look up ‘illegal knives’ on the internet, along with statistics for knife crimes in Aberdeen. He often showed his knives to his schoolfriend and liked to cut up pieces of paper with his blades.
As early as his first or second year at secondary school, head teacher Anna Muirhead spoke to him individually about knives, emphasising that he must never bring them into the premises. And yet, four years later, the boy was routinely taking a knife to school.
The simplest explanation for his behaviour is the boy thought they were ‘cool’. In his police interview, the killer himself said: ‘I never fitted in. I was just trying to act cool and confident and tough, but I wasn’t. I had them just to act tough.’
His best friend, meanwhile, told the court: ‘It was just something cool to look at. I always told him not to bring it, but he thought it was cool.’
The knives and the knuckledusters, it seemed, were childish props to compensate for the youngster’s sense of inadequacy – a way for a shy child who was self- conscious about his weight to feel better about himself.
Another factor in the boy’s disaffection was his somewhat chaotic home life. He was the youngest of three boys and, in his own mind, a disappointment to his mother, who had wanted a daughter.
He had a 32-hours-a-week job at McDonald’s which, no doubt, impacted on his school work. It also gave the teenager a large disposable income. Certainly £40 for a knife and £10 for knuckle dusters was no great stretch for him. He told police he had £600 saved up for a motor scooter.
It is little surprise, perhaps, that the boy often turned up at school tired.
Last night McDonald’s said that staff aged under 18 can only work shifts of up to eight hours and can work no more than 40 hours per week. However, a spokesman refused to comment on the specifics of the teenager’s contract or hours worked.
The boy told police that he bought his l atest knife f rom Amazon because they ‘don’t check if you’re 18’. He explained that he l eft instructions for weapons to be delivered to the shed in his mother’s
‘I had them just to act tough’
back garden to ensure that she did not see the package when it arrived.
Why would Amazon agree to such an arrangement? By law, a knife such as that used to kill Bailey should never be sold to under 18s. Amazon states that a signature ‘may be required’ on delivery of the product. Clearly, in the case of the knife used in this culpable homicide, it was not.
Amazon had yet to answer any questions relating to its sale of knives last night.
Headteacher Miss Muirhead said the teenager was a ‘quiet, unassuming boy who did not push himself forward’. Crucially, though, she had spoken to him on ‘a couple of occasions’ about taking knives to school.
‘It was when [he] was much, much younger,’ she said. Yet it appears the boy did not take heed. More worryingly, his school was clearly unaware of this. And so for months, perhaps years, the boy showed up at Cults Academy with a deadly weapon in his pocket. He showed it often to his closest friend and very occasionally to others but they were not persuasive or mature enough to take steps to ensure the habit stopped.
Yesterday Detective Superintendent David McLaren said: ‘I think had there not been a knife taken into school then Bailey would still be alive today.’
Miss Muirhead had put it succinctly enough. Knives had no place in schools, she told the trial, because ‘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.’
Disastrously, that became the story of Bailey Gwynne and his foolish young attacker.