A 15-year-old boy who stabbed a teacher in a school corridor after telling friends he wanted to kill somebody and researched how to buy firearms in the UK has been given a 14-month detention and training order.
The teenager covered his face with a snood and a hooded top before attacking Jamie Sansom with a 6in (15cm) kitchen knife.
Tewkesbury academy in Gloucestershire was locked down after the attack while police searched for the boy, and two other schools were asked to shut their doors as a precaution.
Minutes before the attack on 10 July, police received a call from the boy whispering to the call handler that someone was going to stab a teacher at the academy.
The boy then knocked on the door of the classroom where Sansom was teaching, beckoned him to come out of the classroom and stabbed him in the stomach.
Sentencing the boy in Bristol, the district judge Lynne Matthews told him: “You were not acting impulsively … You told the emergency services. Nothing strikes me about it that was impulsive.”
Matthews said the boy would serve half the sentence in custody, with the remainder at home working with the youth offending team.
The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had admitted trying to unlawfully and maliciously wound Sansom and possessing a knife.
Sansom, who had taught maths at the school since 2017, was discharged from hospital on the same day as the attack. In a statement, he said he bore the boy no ill will and expressed concern about violence in schools.
During preliminary hearings in Gloucestershire, it was claimed the boy had said he wanted to kill somebody, rob a bank and “live a life of crime” and had researched how to buy firearms.
The boy fled after the attack, and news of what had happened spread quickly through the community. The teenager’s mother contacted him and asked him to give himself up.
He apologised to her and said: “Goodbye forever … But remember I always loved you guys.”
The boy was found about 5 miles (8km) from the academy. Firearms officers challenged the boy, who dropped the knife, and he was arrested.
James McKenna, defending, told the court how the teenager, who was from a loving and supportive family, had been suffering with poor mental health at the time of the attack.
Laura Burgess, a senior crown prosecutor for CPS South West, said: “This was a shocking incident for the victim, who was lucky to not have been more seriously hurt.”
