School teen knifeman is sentenced to 12 years

ASCHOOLBOY with a morbid fascination with killing has been handed an extended 12year sentence to protect the public after stabbing a teenager.

The 16-year-old was convicted last year of attempting to murder a fellow pupil in a corridor at Eirias High School.

Judge Rhys Rowlands, sitting at Mold Crown Court yesterday, sentenced the boy to eight years of detention with a further four years on licence, which means he could be recalled to custody. The judge made clear the boy, who cannot be identified, will only be released when the Parole Board considers he is safe.

Judge Rowlands said it was only “sheer good luck” that he had not killed the other boy when he stabbed him to the shoulder as he walked from a music lesson at the Colwyn Bay school.

The teenager harboured thoughts of killing someone, including a member of his own family, and in the lead-up to the school attack he beat a lamb and then drowned it, and also stabbed a cow.

Judge Rowlands said he had absolutely no doubt that the boy posed “a significant risk of serious harm” to members of the public.

“Regrettably I have come to the conclusion that you are a dangerous offender. I am driven to the view that you remain a very troubled young man who has harboured thoughts of harming, indeed, of killing, someone – thoughts you acted upon that morning in February of last year.”

Aged just 15 at the time of the random attack on February 11 the boy aimed for his victim’s neck with the knife. Fortunately he missed and stabbed him in the shoulder instead.

CCTV chillingly showed the defendant walking up the corridor and reopening his knife in order “to finish him off”. But the victim, 15, arrived at his classroom and the attacker thought better of it, later saying he did not want to kill the boy in front of classmates. The court heard the attacker did not know the victim.

He admitted that he had stabbed the boy and pleaded guilty to wounding with intent. But he denied attempted murder and a jury took just 48 minutes to unanimously convict him of that charge following a trial last October.

He admitted two charges of taking an orange-handled lock knife decorated with human skulls to school on two occasions.

The boy, who showed no emotion as he was sentenced, had written a personal letter to the judge in which he said that he was now more mature and in a much better place mentally and he asked for a chance.

He had no previous convictions and the judge warned if he was an adult the starting-point for sentence would be 15 years but could go up to 20. He made a 10-year restraining order under which the boy is not to approach the victim or attend the school.

Sion ap Mihangel, mitigating, conceded there had been an element of planning but said the defendant was still very young and was vulnerable himself.

He said the boy was struggling with his emotional health but there was time for him to develop and properly mature.

The judge said he had come into possession of the 20cm knife some weeks before the attack and he had been experimenting by harming farm animals.

He had described beating a lamb and drowning it, which had taken several minutes, and stabbing a cow to the neck with a kitchen knife.

Judge Rowlands said it was worrying that “you took pleasure in inflicting pain” on harmless animals.