Jury retires in trial of 15-year-old boy accused of murdering student in school

Western Telegraph

2 days ago

The defendant, who cannot be named, has admitted the manslaughter of Harvey, also 15, who was stabbed to death at All Saints Catholic High School on February 3.
The boy denies murder and has been on trial for the last month.
On Tuesday, judge Mrs Justice Ellenbogen completed her summing-up of the case and sent out the jury of four men and eight women to start its deliberations.
The stabbing of Harvey by the boy in a courtyard during the school's lunch break was captured on CCTV and the footage has been viewed by jurors multiple times.
Harvey Willgoose was stabbed to death at his school in February (South Yorkshire Police/PA)
It shows how he was stabbed twice and the court has heard how one of these blows cut through one of his ribs and pierced his heart.
Jurors heard how immediately after the stabbing the defendant told All Saints' headteacher Sean Pender: 'I'm not right in the head. My mum doesn't look after me right.'
The boy told the jury from the witness box that this was not right and he had said 'my head's not right' to Mr Pender.
The school's assistant head, Morgan Davis, took the knife off the defendant and heard him say 'you know I can't control it', which the teacher took to be a reference to his anger issues, given previous incidents of violent behaviour at school, the court heard.
The jury was told how Harvey and the defendant fell out following an incident in the school five days before the fatal stabbing on January 29.
On that day, the defendant tried to intervene in an altercation involving two other boys and had to be restrained by a teacher.
When he claimed one of these boys had a knife, a lockdown was declared and police were called, although no weapon was found.
Harvey was not at school that day and stayed off for the rest of the week, texting his dad: 'Am not going in that school while people have knives.'
Over the weekend before the stabbing, Harvey and the defendant fell out on social media, with each siding with a different boy involved in the lockdown incident.
When the defendant returned to school in Monday February 3, he was asked by Mr Davis whether he had anything he should not, but he said he did not.
The jury has heard about a series of encounters between Harvey and the defendant that morning before the defendant pulled out the knife and used it just after the start of the lunch break, which began at 12.10pm.
The court was shown images and video found on the defendant's phone which captured him posing with knives and other weapons, and was told how he had used search terms relating to weapons on the internet.
Richard Thyne KC, prosecuting, told jurors: 'You may think the searches aren't conducted by someone who has a specific and deep-rooted fear of someone, but by someone who's become obsessed.'
The defendant told jurors how he decided to carry a knife for protection as he feared other teenagers he believed were carrying weapons.
His barrister Gul Nawaz Hussain KC told the jury that the defendant 'snapped' after years of bullying and 'an intense period of fear at school'.
Mr Hussain told jurors: 'Tragically, Harvey was a combination of being the final straw that broke (the defendant) and the unintended face of a series of threats of violence and bullying he had suffered in recent months.
'We say he suffered a loss of control which resulted in horrific and tragic consequences.'