A boy who attacked two sleeping students and a teacher with hammers at a top public school has been jailed for life.
The boy, now thought to be 17, was arrested in June last year after the two pupils sustained “multiple serious injuries” at Blundell’s School in Tiverton, Devon.
Devon and Cornwall Police had descended on the school in the early hours of June 9, 2023, to reports of a serious assault.
The then-16-year-old, the court found, was wearing just his boxer shorts and used weapons he had collected to prepare for a zombie apocalypse to attack his schoolmates and housemaster.
Today, at Exeter Crown Court, a judge detained the youth for life with a minimum term of 12 years after finding him guilty of attempted murder earlier this year.
The boy has been found guilty of attempted murder at Exeter Crown Court
PA
The youth was wearing just his boxer shorts and used weapons he had collected to prepare for a zombie apocalypse to carry out the attack – and though he admitted to assaulting the trio, he claimed he was sleepwalking.
The boy – who cannot be identified for legal reasons – had armed himself with three claw hammers and waited for the two boys to be asleep before attacking them.
The students had been asleep in cabin-style beds in one of the £47,775-per-year school’s boarding houses when the 16-year-old got up and attacked them shortly before 1am on June 9 last year.
Housemaster Henry Roffe-Silvester, who was asleep in his own quarters, was woken up by noises coming from the boarding house and went to investigate.
Exeter Crown Court in Exeter, DevonPAWhen he entered the bedroom where the attack had happened, he saw a silhouette of a figure standing in the room, who then turned towards him and repeatedly struck him over the head six times with a hammer.
Another student heard Roffe-Silvester shouting and swearing as he fled the bedroom and dialled 999, thinking there was an intruder at the school.
The two boys were discovered in their beds a few minutes later having suffered skull fractures, as well as injuries to their ribs, spleen, a punctured lung and internal bleeding.
Both victims are now forced to live with the “long-term consequences” of the attack – but have no memory of the incident.
Both victims must now live with the “long-term consequences” of the attack at the school
BLUNDELL’S SCHOOL
More to follow…