A 15-year-old boy told his headteacher ‘I’m not right in the head’ after he stabbed a fellow pupil to death with a five-inch hunting knife during their school lunch break, a jury has been told.
Harvey Willgoose, also 15, collapsed within seconds of being knifed in the heart at All Saints Catholic High School in Sheffield and died soon after on February 3.
Richard Thyne KC, prosecuting, told the jury that after the incident, the defendant told head teacher Sean Pender: ‘I’m not right in the head. My mum doesn’t look after me right. I’ve stabbed him.’
He added: ‘While waiting for the emergency services to arrive, (the defendant) also told Mr Pender that he was carrying the knife for protection.’
Sheffield Crown Court was told the school had gone into lockdown days before the fatal stabbing when the defendant reported seeing a knife during a dispute between two other students.
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Mr Thyne said the defendant did not go to school the following two days and a relative contacted the office to say he was ‘scared of going to school because of the lockdown’.
He said that Harvey, who was absent when the incident happened, sent a text message to his dad saying ‘am not going in that school while people have knives’.
Mr Thyne said the incident led to Harvey and the defendant falling out in a Snapchat group, with each siding with one of the boys involved in the initial dispute, who had been suspended.
He said that in one message on February 1, Harvey sent the defendant his address, telling him that if he had a problem ‘you got my Addy I’ll deal with it simple’.
Jurors were shown CCTV footage of the killing, with Mr Thyne telling them: ‘It is shocking, but it is necessary to play it.’
He told them it shows Harvey appearing to put his left hand on the defendant’s right arm before the other boy ‘takes a knife out of his left pocket, passes it across into his right hand, and then stabs twice at Harvey’s torso’.
Mr Thyne said the accused then advances towards Harvey, who backs away across the courtyard, before ‘(the defendant) returns towards where the incident began, gesturing towards Harvey with his knife, and appearing to shout at Harvey’.
The video shows Harvey running towards the boy, who then advances for a second time, ‘bouncing on his toes, still brandishing the knife’, the prosecutor said, adding that then ‘Harvey backs away’.
Mr Thyne said ‘other pupils fled in fear and panic’ as the defendant went into the dining hall still holding the knife.
Staff members Carolyn Siddall and Rachel Hobkirk approached the boy as he ‘was dancing around on his toes and waving the knife around, although by this stage he seemed to be saying “I’m not going to hurt anyone”’, the prosecutor said.
He added: ‘They told him to put the knife down but he did not do so.’
Mr Thyne told the jury assistant head Morgan Davis arrived and ‘found the defendant still waving the knife around’.
As Mr Davis told him to hand over the knife, the defendant was saying to him: ‘You know I can’t control it,’ which Mr Thyne said the teacher took to be a reference to his anger issues, given previous incidents of violent behaviour at school.
The prosecutor said: ‘Mr Davis held his hand out and took the knife from (the defendant).
‘At the same time the headteacher, Mr Pender, placed his arm around (the defendant)’s shoulder and took him along the corridor to his office.’
The jury has heard the defendant has admitted Harvey’s manslaughter, but denies murdering him.
The boy, who cannot be named, has also admitted possession of a knife on school premises.
The defendant sat in the glass-fronted dock, wearing a white shirt with no tie, as Mr Thyne outlined the case against him.
He was flanked by a number of adults, including an intermediary.
The trial continues.
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