Boy killed teacher after school didn’t let him drop class
A SCHOOLBOY stabbed his teacher to death in the classroom after he was told he couldn’t drop her subject, a report reveals today.
The parents of Will Cornick felt they weren’t ‘listened to’ when they met Spanish teacher Ann Maguire and their son’s head of year to say his relationship with her had ‘broken down’ and reiterated his wish to stop having lessons.
Two months later, the 15-yearold pupil walked up to Mrs Maguire, 61, during class and stabbed her seven times in the back and neck with a knife he had brought to school. He then calmly sat down and said ‘good times’.
The ‘learning lessons’ review into the case also revealed how Cornick underwent a personality change, becoming ‘intolerant, aggressive, angry and judgmental’ after being diagnosed with diabetes in 2010. A psychologist believed his ‘powerful angry thoughts and feelings’ may have been initially triggered by the diagnosis and that he ‘didn’t manage his diabetes well’.
The review concluded that his parents and staff at Corpus Christi Catholic College in Leeds were unaware of his ‘deep antipathy’ towards Mrs Maguire, and said no concerns about his mental health had been reported. Cornick talked about his intention to kill Mrs Maguire, messense saging a friend to say she deserved ‘more than death’ and even showing off his knives to other pupils.
But in asking whether the attack in April 2014 could have been foreseen, the report’s independent author Nick Page said: ‘I do not consider that such a heavy responsibility can or should be placed on Will’s peers and friends.’ Other pupils put the threats down to Cornick’s ‘dark of humour’ and never believed he would actually carry them out.
Mr Page, who spoke to Cornick, said the teenager claimed to have been ‘in a red mist, not conscious of his surroundings’. He added that in contrast to what Cornick told police, ‘Will now states that he wanted to be stopped from stabbing Ann’.
The report, commissioned by the Leeds Safeguarding Children Board, also described a meeting at school in February 2014 with Cornick’s parents to discuss his bad behaviour.
They are said to have accepted head of year Andrew Kellett’s decision not to let him drop Spanish as the course was nearing its end and he was predicted a good grade.
The report said: ‘Mr and Mrs Cornick are critical of the school’s handling of Will and his wish to stop studying Spanish but in no way suggest that this contributed to Ann’s murder.’
Cornick, now 18, was given a life sentence in November 2014 after admitting murder at Leeds Crown Court.
‘He wanted to be stopped’